A.M. Links: Hillary Clinton Addresses DNC Tonight, Gary Johnson Pulls Support From Clinton and Trump, Turkey Shuts Down 130 Media Outlets

• 

  CNN

  Hillary Clinton will speak tonight at the Democratic National Convention.

• Speaking at the Democratic National Convention last night, President Barack Obama urged the country to support Hillary Clinton over "homegrown demagogues" like Donald Trump.
• Supporters of Bernie Sanders continue to protest inside and outside the Democratic National Convention.
• Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson "is pulling support from both Clinton and Trump."
• Turkey has now shut down 130 media outlets in the wake of the failed coup.
• "German Chancellor Angela Merkel, under pressure after two terror attacks by asylum seekers in the space of a week, said she was still convinced that Germany could handle the influx of migrants and refugees."

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter, and don't forget to sign up for Reason's daily updates for more content.

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Hillary Clinton will speak tonight at the Democratic National Convention.

But not to the press.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Hello.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

Could someone please let Damon know there are other pictures in the world he can use?

[Brochettaward]

I'm getting sick of the lack of diverse people in article pictures.

[Fist of Etiquette]

He should follow Matt Drudge's lead. That guy has an apparently infinite cache of Hillary pics.

[This Machine]

DUDE. The picture on the front page this morning is... well it's something. My first thought is "terrifying," but "amusing" also seems to work.

[Rich]

"Why did Richard Nixon watch 'Deep Throat' three times?"

[(((Renegade)))]

So he could get it down Pat.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

So he could get it down, Pat

[BiPolarMoment]

His name is Dick.

[straffinrun]

One click away from nightmares.

[This Machine]

*screams internally*

[Citizen X]

OH MY GOD [falls over]

[WTF]

Obama performs the "shocker".

[Chip Woodier]

"Well, that's not my finger, either."

[Rhywun]

"Your head goes in here, boy." (points at mouth - get your minds out of the gutter)

[Lord at War]

When you're a drunk, that where your mind usually lands... :o)

[Red Rocks Okey-Dokein]

Drudge has some deliciously trollish headlines up this morning.

[Rhywun]

Obama Refers to Himself 119 Times During Hillary Nominating Speech...

LOL

Never really visited Drudge before... it's amusing.

[Lord at War]

Drudge is fun... One dude's opinion of what will get clicked. I'll pass on the Alex Jones and Jim Hoft links, but it's a view of his world.

[straffinrun]

Looks like Bernie did the ole "pull my finger".

[Doctor Whom]

You don't necessarily need that many pictures when children are hungry in this country.

[AlmightyJB]

Need more ENB pics

[Bee Tagger]

It's for the best since it's hard to hold a microphone in your hand when you're busy using it to clap your other hand repeatedly.

[TheZeitgeist]

Hillary Clinton will speak tonight at the Democratic National Convention.

Eventually, the commercial ends and the dog food in question must be evaluated directly.

[Rhywun]

I loved the Orwellian moment the other day when she was speaking at the delegate from a towering monitor, her 50-foot-high shock-eyed visage glaring down at her flock like the Goddess she wants to be.

[Fist of Etiquette]

...President Barack Obama urged the country to support Hillary Clinton over "homegrown demagogues" like Donald Trump.

Not quite like the other night's "Accused Rapist Wows Feminists" but still swoonworthy, I'm sure.

[WTF]

You know who else was a homegrown demagogue?

[Fist of Etiquette]

NOT SOMEONE WITHOUT A LONG FORM BIRTH CERTIFICATE THAT'S FOR SURE.

[Adans smith]

Robsprie?

[This Machine]

God love ya, Adans, if it were anyone else, I'd have no idea they meant to say "Robespierre."

[WTF]

I thought he might have meant Fruit Sushi.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

FDR?

[CatoTheChipper]

Let's just say that this a case where "it takes one to know one".

[Agent Cooper]

Practically every politician ever born?

[The Fusionist]

Green Party politicians? (They're *organically* grown demagogues, too)

[Bee Tagger]

Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson "is pulling support from both Clinton and Trump."

Using a tow attached to a truck built by unions on state roads, probably.

[UnCivilServant]

Nonsense, it's artisinal orphan-hair rope over the open seas.

[AlmightyJB]

Until election day when people start to panic

[Fist of Etiquette]

Supporters of Bernie Sanders continue to protest inside and outside the Democratic National Convention.

They're going to feel so bad about this when they eventually fall into line.

[TheZeitgeist]

Last time Mensheviks put their guard down around Communists...things ended not so pretty for Mensheviks.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

White Democrats vs, Red Democrats.

[Stickler Meeseeks]

My favorite is the dipshid who accidentally sets himself on fire while burning the flag. Couldn't happen to a better asshole.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Hey, the flag represents the people not the government, so technically he was simply extending the effigy into reality. And, in fact, it might have been performance art.

[UnCivilServant]

That's happened twice now at two different conventions.

[Bra Ket]

Sounds like it's time for a recall and a class action lawsuit.

[BiPolarMoment]

But what about your short game?

[Just a thought not a sermon]

206) Since the news media today are completely unreadable, I'll address something I've been wondering about for a long time. Back in the 1960s or early 1970s, was it possible for pretty much anybody to make it in rock music?

Think of how many songs from that era have lyrics like "pick up a second-hand guitar, chances are you'll go far" or "find a rock'n'roll band, that needs a helping hand" or similar. Were those lyrics in there because it was actually true?

I notice too in reading the liner notes of various bands from that period, all the guys in London, San Francisco, LA, NY seemed to be in each other's bands, and a high percentage of people in those scenes found real success. Moreover, the large number of mediocre bands with questionable musical talent who sold millions of records is astounding: Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Grand Funk Railroad, Guess Who, Foghat, etc. Even fairly respectable bands like Jefferson Airplane or the Doors had pretty primitive music skills (Velvet Underground!).

So, was it really possible to just pick up a guitar and make tons of money, if you just happened to be a young adult in that particular era?

[Juvenile Bluster]

With a modicum of talent, you could go far.

"Tons of money" is another story.

[straffinrun]

Thinky you had to be deaf, dumb and blind.

[Juvenile Bluster]

That was if you wanted to be the best at pinball.

[straffinrun]

I was talking about BTO. Worse than Nickelback.

[geo1113]

Henry Rollins and Nickleback

[Warty]

Just like today, you needed a ton of luck and either monster talent (e.g. Jimmy Page) or insipid good looks (e.g. Jim Morrison).

[commodious the clueless]

Where does patience and an abiding sense of mediocrity get you?

[Brett L]

Robert Earl Keen's career?

[Chipwooder]

Good looks? I thought Jim Morrison made it because he had a huge dong?

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Getting the right mixture in the band can be huge. A front man with flair and charisma and at least one member who is technically competent and driven is a formula for success. Often times if there is some level of destructive conflict between the two, it comes through and translates into success. Catching lighting in a bottle.

Morrison and Manzarek are like Roth and Van Halen.

Talking about Page and Plant ignores Bonzo and Jones who added to that dynamic.

[Red Rocks Okey-Dokein]

Tyler and Perry in Aerosmith also reflects this dynamic.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Daltry and Townshend.

Although, as per Bob's comment, Moon and Entwistle did add to the dynamic.

Richards/Jones and Jagger.

Clemens and Springsteen.

Not sure if Lennon and McCartney qualifies.

[Red Rocks Okey-Dokein]

I don't think I'd throw Lennon and McCartney in there just because they were essentially dual front-men.

[Chipwooder]

Mick Jones and Joe Strummer

[SugarFree]

You can still do it now, but the collapse of a speculative music industry just means you have to do it on your own.

If a talentless, overweight, hag-face with a voice like shot-glass in a garbage disposal can do it, I assume just about anyone can.

[Ceci n'est pas un woodchipper]

There are metal bands with virtuoso technical abilities and absolutely stunning orchestration who have to have day jobs. Meanwhile, this basic-ass sorostitute repeats the same damn song over and over again and makes bank. Maybe the terrorists should win.

[SugarFree]

It's about who will buy the music (women under 35 seem like the last reliable market) and, even more importantly, who will go to the concerts. The era of the small rock club and the stadium rock tour is pretty much dead.

It's a damn shame, but studio-created music has killed it pretty thoroughly. I'm sure will have a few more rock revival eras, but they seem shorter and shallower every time they come around.

[(((Renegade)))]

The era of the small rock club and the stadium rock tour is pretty much dead.

I don't do stadium shit, but I've found no shortage of small rock clubs. In my Austin days, you could reliably hear great stuff at The Mohawk, Beauty Bar, Dive, and about a million other spots. I'm currently exploring some of the back alley spots in Milwaukee and suburban Chicago. Tip: Jack Mazzenga and the Space Time Trio are playing some of the most kick ass fusion rock I've ever heard.

[(((Renegade)))]

Shit, how could I forget Austin's Carousel Lounge, the world's greatest hallucinogenic clown bar?

[a better chipper]

Ceci, have any recommendations for metal bands similar to Into Eternity or Blind Guardian?

I've really been enjoying the dramatic feel of their music but can't find anything else like them I enjoy as much. Curse of Feanor by Blind Guardian is pretty fucking epic but I don't have enough material close to how good it is to make a playlist around.

[End Child Unemployment]

Check out Symphony X in the progressive metal space. Russell Allen is easily one of my top 3 vocalists, and they do a great job balancing showing off technical talent and effective composition/songwriting. Also pretty sure they have 3 of 5 members named Michael.

Other bands worth checking out in the progressive space are Scar Symmetry and Andromeda (but not their last 2 albums, in which they forgot they are a metal band). Scar Symmetry is a little bit of a guilty pleasure for me - they have near boy band sounding clean vocals, mixed with harsh, but good technical chops and tend to do fun rhythmic patterns.

I don't think you'll find anyone else like Blind Guardian. Their vocalist Hansi did a side project, Demons & Wizards, with Jon Schaffer from Iced Earth. Worth listening but I don't think it's as good. Power metal is not as much my thing. I enjoy on occasion Edguy, Sonata Arctica. Never got into Sabaton but a lot of Blind Guardian afficionados are all about them. Hammerfall is really good if you want to get pumped up to have sex with men. I've told non metal friends about that affect, they chide me for using 'gay' in a pejorative sense, which I am not, I play 'Hearts on Fire' for them and they always remark "you're right, the music just sounds very triumphantly homosexual".

Hope this helps!

[Rufus The Monocled]

What annoys me is the assertion that the music of the 1980s was 'soulless' as one local guy on the radio put it recently. Apparently, using the synthesizer = lack of soul. The 80s had some bad crap but it also had really interesting music but the 1970s were equal to the task when it came to churning out crap. Maybe it had *more* genres (Punk, New Wave, Disco) but I think we romanticize it a tad. Personally, if you're going to pick the best decades for rock music on a pound for pound basis it's a fight between the 1950s and 1960s.

[UnCivilServant]

The problem with comparisons of past music is that the bad stuff gets left by the wayside, so you're often comparing the average of the more recent decade to the best of the past.

[SRVolunteer]

Along the same lines, UCS...

When I was a young man, I spent a few years working construction where we had the radio on 8 hours a day. What I noticed about the oldies stations is that, if they managed to play a song I didn't recognize, it almost invariably sucked. Further, after a summer of listening to the oldies station, I was pretty tired of all of it.

Of course, we switched to oldies that year after being burnt out on Garth Brooks the year before. Seemed like 4-5 Garth Brooks songs every hour, on every country station. Because tour.

[Warty]

As time goes on, 90s music ages worse and worse and 80s music seems better and better. I mean, come on, Pearl Jam??

[Brett L]

And yet, I find Vedder's solo stuff totally fine for background music to work by.

[SugarFree]

There was plenty of fantastic music made in the 90s, but little of it was on MTV, and the mass market has fractured to the point that it will be hard for a revival of it to ever get started.

[a better chipper]

Agreed. My wife threw a 90s theme party and I got stuck putting together the playlist. I was surprised how much stuff I ended up moving over to my regular playlists. Circles by Soul Coughing really stood out to me.

[Citizen X]

Soul Coughing was excellent.

[Chipwooder]

Yes indeedy.....Soft Serve off the Irresistible Bliss album is one of my favorite songs of all time.

[Certified Public Asshat]

Aqua was very underrated as well.

[a better chipper]

You're kidding me? The Barbie Girl group? What songs are their "good stuff."

[Brett L]

In retrospect, the lack of autotune makes them a phenomenal band for the current era.

[Butts Wagner]

Aqua held their own with any horror-core group

[Illocust]

Not really, give it ten more years and we'll start hearing the best of the 90's. There was crap, but there was a lot of good songs too.

[CE]

We just can't think of any.

[(((Renegade)))]

80s music seems better and better

There was The Bears, and then there was everything else.

[This Machine]

What annoys me is the assertion that the music of the 1980s was 'soulless' as one local guy on the radio put it recently.

Have you listened to any New Retro Wave? That stuff is coming back with a vengeance and it's awesome. I'm a huge metalhead myself, but if I'm looking for some chill driving tunes, that "soulless synth stuff" is hard to fuckin' beat.

(h/t Dennis nee Gilmore)

[Rufus The Monocled]

No, but I do listen to First Wave on Sirius. Interesting to note Culture Club now passes for New Wave.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

That was considered New Wave when it came out when I was in HS.

But New Wave was considered almost anything that fell between Punk and Rock.

Fucking Adam and the Ants were the king of NW for a couple weeks and I dare you to point to any significant difference between those two as to the music.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Good point. Now that you mention it.

Although I seem to recall CC as just plain pop. But I could be wrong. I was in junior high when they burst onto the scene.

[Chip Woodier]

I like house music on a twisty highway, riding a motorcycle.

[Zeb]

I don't see any point picking "the best". It all depends on what you like and every decade has produced tons of mediocre to bad music and some really good stuff.

[Drake]

I read Mick Fleetwood's autobiography. When he moved to London as a teenager in the mid-sixties, it sounded like he had moved to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. As a journeyman drummer, he was playing with Rod Stewart, Clapton, Van Morrison, and the like pretty much as soon as he got there.

Part of it was that they all cared. He describes the English Blues movement as a crusade. Nobody really gives a shit about music these days - so there is nothing to draw together talent and fans like that.

[Brett L]

I don't know. The Seattle grunge scene seems like that. A bunch of people drifted up there, played in each other's bands until they found a group they could stand, and played the shit out of stuff. Its just that the record studios immediately started putting together their own "grunge", just like the (3rd?) wave of pop country. Those Florida-Georgia line guys are like the no-dance-talent NKOTB.

[Zeb]

Nobody really gives a shit about music these days - so there is nothing to draw together talent and fans like that.

?

It's just spread out more now. There is more music out there for anyone to discover than there ever has been. And the people making it certainly give a shit.

ANd if you look at something like the world of rap music, it's pretty similar to how you describe the 60s London blues rock scene.

[Drake]

Sure, except for the "music" description.

[Zeb]

Haw haw.

Rap is just the last 3 letters of crap, amiright?

There is some quite musical and interesting rap. It's OK if you don't like it.

[Drake]

I actually think of it as street poetry. Not quite rising to the level of a good limerick .

[a better chipper]

It's totally pointless one way or the other, but I often think about whether or not rap is music or poetry.

It has all the components of music, but the focus is so heavily on the words that it's certainly got a foot in poetry, but does it have both? I go back and forth on this meaningless distinction.

[SugarFree]

All lyrics are poetry, some of it vastly better written than most.

I've always thought that the biggest gulf in traditional rock and rap/hip-hop is that most rock is worked out live for an audience and then recorded, and most hip-hop (and modern pop) is created in the studio and then released for audience consumption.

It creates fundamentally different music that rarely appeals across fan bases, and different live experiences for audiences.

[Zeb]

Though there is also a big live performance and improvisation tradition in rap too. But I suppose it is less closely tied to what gets released on the album than with rock.

[Chip Woodier]

All lyrics are poetry

[SugarFree]

I didn't say it was all good poetry.

[Zeb]

I'll just call it "music". With the "rap" modifier if necessary to avoid confusion.

[Krabappel]

GET OFF MY LAWN!

[(((Renegade)))]

When I lived in Austin, the standing joke there was that there were so many great musicians, you could be the lead guitarist in a band and still not get laid.

[a better chipper]

Lol! Now that's funny. A guitarist in Austin is about as ho-hum as an accountant in most other cities.

[Rufus The Monocled]

The British were heavily influenced by American rock and blues; not to mention jazz.

And then they put their spin on it.

Chuck Berry begat The Rolling Stones and before we knew it we had Pink Floyd. (who by the way, combined the names of two blues musicians to get their band name).

[Lord at War]

John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers...

Clapton, John Mcvie and Mic Fleetwood, Jack Bruce, Mick Taylor, all of "Canned Heat", and many others...

[CE]

But BTO was just taking care of business, and Foghat had a pretty slow ride to success.

[Lord at War]

Moreover, the large number of mediocre bands with questionable musical talent who sold millions of records is astounding: Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Grand Funk Railroad, Guess Who, Foghat, etc. Even fairly respectable bands like Jefferson Airplane or the Doors had pretty primitive music skills (Velvet Underground!).

I know! Can you believe they didn't have the immense musical talent possessed by the likes of Kanye West, Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, One Direction, or Taylor Swift?

[Lord at War]

Really?!! No. REALLY!??

[Lord at War]

Please name a currently "popular" band earning millions of dollars with any perceivable musical ability... Just one!

[Mike Laursen]

First of all, the three members of The Doors who weren't Jim Morrison were talented musicians.

[Mike Laursen]

But more to the point, growing up in L.A. In the 60s and 70s, I personally knew more than a few talented musicians who did not make it. Talented musicians were all over the place in L.A. and few of them actually lucked out and made it.

Back then, the pop musicians had come from earlier eras when many of them had excellent training in singing in church choirs and nerdy glee clubs, and there were musicians who knew how I play jazz but dumbed it down a bit for rock 'n' roll. Nowadays you have people who have grown up only knowing how to play rock playing new rock.

Also, the big studios had session musicians to make the lucky untalented but chosen ones look really good.

[Bee Tagger]

Turkey has now shut down 130 media outlets in the wake of the failed coup.

Are you sure you didn't mean soup?

[Just a thought not a sermon]

No coup for you!

[Bee Tagger]

Hey! It's cool to raise chickens when you live in the city now, didn't you realize?

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

A real hipster would be raising turk?ys in his coup

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Democratic Faith Council Member: White Christian Men, Not Muslims, Should Apologize For Terrorism
...He added, "If anybody needs to be apologizing for violence in this country it does need to be American white Christians."...

[WTF]

Right. Depressing that some people actually believe this shit.

[Zeb]

Nobody needs to be apologizing for violence in the country except the people doing violence or encouraging others to do so.

[Princess Trigger]

OK, I'll be the first.
I sincerly and unreservedly apoligize for all the terrorism I have carried out in my life.
Also for the things I've said while drunk.

[Jimbo]

Oh, so you finally ADMIT it, huh? Well now we need reparations from you!

[Lord at War]

Also for the things I've said while drunk.

You've seen my twitter feed... :o)

[Lord at War]

@lord_at_war if you are interested in horse racing and drunken trolling of progs...

[Free Society]

"If you look at the hate crimes that are being committed in this country and all the violence that is being done against Muslim people, Sikhs, folks of south Asian descent it is clearly white male Christians that are doing this kind of violence," Stief said.

If you look at this class of crime defined as instances of a white person committing a crime against a non-white person, you'll see that they're all committed by white people. Shocking.

[Zeb]

There were some unfortunate incidents like that after 911. But it doesn't seem like a major ongoing problem.

And like you say, if you define things narrowly enough, you can say a lot of shit and make it technically sort of true.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Elsewhere (208)
...I started giving quizzes to my juniors and seniors. I gave them a ten-question American history test? just to see where they are. The vast majority of my students - I'm talking nine out of ten, in every single class, for seven consecutive years ? they have no idea that slavery existed anywhere in the world before the United States. Moses, Pharaoh, they know none of it. They're 100% convinced that slavery is a uniquely American invention? How do you give an adequate view of history and culture to kids when that's what they think of their own country ? that America invented slavery? That's all they know....

[Just a thought not a sermon]

Of course the slaves themselves were well aware they were not the first slaves--look at how prominent Moses and Exodus themes were in black spirituals. Congratulations, American schools! Today's seniors are less well-informed about history than illiterate sharecroppers a century ago!

[UnCivilServant]

The curriculum writers would call that a success.

[Drake]

History is written by the victors and the Left has won.

[Doctor Whom]

Between that and the fact that one of America's best funded large school systems cannot afford heating, water fountains, or even toilet paper, all the money that politicians have been pouring into public schools is obviously being put to good use.

[JWatts]

"Between that and the fact that one of America's best funded large school systems cannot afford heating, water fountains, or even toilet paper, all the money that politicians have been pouring into public schools is obviously being put to good use."

Let's see, my local county averages $7,900 per year per student and no one is doing without heating, water fountains, toilet paper or even A/C cranked up high enough to leave the teachers wearing sweaters in July.

How much does Baltimore spend?

"In 2011, Baltimore City Public Schools had the second-highest per student cost among the nation's 100 largest school districts according to the U.S. Census Bureau, spending $15,483 per student per year."

Hmmm, I'm guessing it's not really a money issue, but a question of spending priorities.

[Red Rocks Okey-Dokein]

It's Baltimore, so public graft likely plays a large role.

[Rich]

Moses, Pharaoh, they know none of it.

Well, they probably know they're rappers.

[(((Renegade)))]

They're dead white males.

[PBR Streetgang]

And, the US wasn't even the biggest importer of African slave labor, it was Brazil

[Free Society]

Brazil can't hold a candle the Arab slave trade that was absolutely genocidal and sadistic and was systemically enslaving Africa (and Europe) for centuries longer than Europeans or their colonies.

[PBR Streetgang]

Definitely true. Maybe more precise of me to say, Brazil was the worst offender in Western hemisphere?

[Free Society]

That sounds more legit. I'm not terribly familiar with the Brazilian case other than the fact that it persisted longer and there were fewer social norms and laws to curb abusive slavers.

[JWatts]

Brazil (and the Carribbean in general) tended to regularly kill off their slaves and import more. It was far worse on average than conditions in the US.

[AlexInCT]

The Dutch were the ones that made a killing buying the slaves from Africans (tribal warfare had consequences) in Africa and bringing them to the west. The Portuguese were pikers compared to them.

[Brett L]

Of course they lost that trade to the English about the time they lost New York.

[Free Society]

And that it was defeated as an institution economically and then politically, not the other way around.

[Zeb]

I'd question how generalizable that all is. It's a pretty vague anecdote. What were the questions?

Maybe it is that bad, but I'm buying it just yet.

[Free Society]

9 out of 10 does seem to be a stretch. But it the answers could be highly skewed if he picked the right inner city school somewhere.

[Suell]

What percentage of the population would know that over a million white slaves were captured in Europe at about the same time as the African slave trade and sold in North African markets? I would think it would be under 1 percent.

[Free Society]

And what percentage know the fate of the slaves to shipped to the Middle East from Africa? Let's just say that the European's were generally lucky enough to be considered fit for breeding.

[Zeb]

I can understand not getting that in American history, which is all a lot of high schools require for history. But if students are left with the impression that the US was particularly or uniquely horrible when it came to slavery, something is very wrong.

[Suell]

That is generally the impression given, that slavery in the US was somehow uniquely horrible. I had a college prof that tried to give some bullshit about how the Arab slave trade was not as significant and that it was not as dehumanizing. Castration was just how they showed that they cared about testicular cancer I guess.

[Suell]

They could at least hit the high notes.

[Stormy Dragon]

Moses, Pharaoh, they know none of it.

"American" "History"

[Rich]

Hillary Clinton will speak tonight at the Democratic National Convention.

Perhaps she'll cough up her vision for the county.

[straffinrun]

*Gollum*

[Rich]

That's a pretty good characterization of H -- a la Kate McKinnon.

"The Presidency, my Precioussssssss!"

[straffinrun]

It Berns!

[lafe.long]

When is Swiss getting back?

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Donald Trump Just Got Hillary Clinton To Admit Her E-mails Are A 'National Security Issue'
...Sullivan did not explain how the e-mails, which Clinton said were about nothing more than her "yoga routines" and wedding planning for her daughter, could possibly pose a national security risk to the United States. Sullivan also failed to explain how unclassified e-mails "private personal e-mails" wholly unrelated to her work as Secretary of State ? Clinton declared in an infamous 2015 press conference that she "did not email any classified material to anyone on my email" ? could compromise American security.

Contrary to Sullivan's assertion about the unprecedented nature of Russian meddling in U.S. elections, former U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) begged the Soviets to help him get rid of President Ronald Reagan in 1984.

Trump shushes NBC reporter, accuses her of trying to 'save' Clinton
...The two then talked over each other for a period of time, as Tur repeated her line of questioning, until Trump eventually concluded with, "Be quiet. I know you want to save her."...

[Brochettaward]

For everyone who calls him dumb, I think the media like a god damn fiddle. They are tripping all over themselves to defend her forgetting last weeks narrative.

[Rich]

Another take on the e-mails: The Clinton campaign seems to think Hillary's yoga-related emails are matters of nat'l security

I trust Trump will be *merciless* in the debates.

[Drake]

He is a world-class troll and counter-puncher. The debates will be wonderful. My kids showed me this twitter exchange where he destroyed a Hillary attack with 2 words.

http://www.onsizzle.com/i/hillary-cli.....ut-1627759

[Doctor Whom]

The Crown Princess does a superlative job of setting herself up on Twitter.

[Drake]

I couldn't believe her team went with a "Trump should delete his account" line of attack. Just lobbing up meatballs.

[Drake]

I couldn't believe her team went with a "Trump should delete his account" line of attack. Just lobbing up meatballs.

[straffinrun]

Don't mistake punching at all with being a world class counter puncher.

[Illocust]

Damn, that's actually viscous. Shame her twitter supporters won't actually see the response. It would dull there enthusiasm quite a bit.

[Free Society]

I can't wait for the debates. Entertainment gold.

[JWatts]

"He is a world-class troll and counter-puncher. The debates will be wonderful. My kids showed me this twitter exchange where he destroyed a Hillary attack with 2 words.

http://www.onsizzle.com/i/hillary-cli.....ut-1627759"

Ouch. Now that's Feeling the Burn.

[Root Boy]

I saw that but heard it's fake. Still beautiful even if it was fake.

[Brian]

You are banned, BANNED, from mentioning Hillary Clinton with "yoga".

* shudders *

Don't ruin yoga pants for me.

[Libertarian]

There's more than one way to ruin yoga pants. "How?" you ask. Depends.

[Free Society]

"How?" you ask. Depends.

Depends are how you save yoga pants.

[bacon-magic]

Banned

[BigT]

Obstruction of justice. They already have the evidence from emails they found she did not turn over. An additional 30,000 pieces of evidence might be hard to ignore even for a 'reasonable' prosecutor.

She really should be stretched out on a gurney.

[Rich]

An additional 30,000 pieces of evidence might be hard to ignore even for a 'reasonable' prosecutor.

Methinks you don't appreciate the meaning of 'reasonable'.

[Brett L]

Close enough for me. Kampei!

[Rich]

?

[Brett L]

Drink!

[straffinrun]

Iki, Iki! Bottoms up!

[VG Zaytsev]

The media have gone fucking ballistic over his comment about the Russians handing over the emails. I'm actually surprised that reason hasn't written half a dozen article piling on. Maybe Nick and the gang are smarter than I thought.

[JWatts]

Maybe, but I'll wait another day before I come to that conclusion.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson "is pulling support from both Clinton and Trump."

I can't doubt this enough.

[straffinrun]

May be true if you count being repulsed as being pulled.

[Fist of Etiquette]

HuffPost Pollster has now made it possible for readers to see this comparison. We've created two charts on the national presidential race: One shows Trump vs. Clinton vs. "other" candidates, and a second shows Trump vs. Clinton vs. Johnson vs. "other" candidates.

So Johnson isn't the only new choice pollsters added into the mix to get Clinton's lead to disappear. Other is in there, too, as a choice. And in some polls that other was defined as Jill Stein. So, no, Johnson isn't necessarily pulling support from both.

[straffinrun]

What I meant was that being repulsed by Clinton or Trump doesn't mean Johnson is "pulling" their support.

[Fist of Etiquette]

I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU MEANT I WAS USING YOUR COMMENT AS A SPRINGBOARD TO MAKE MY POINT. You simply served a purpose for my utilitarian designs.

[straffinrun]

did it make you happy?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Not really. I'm beginning to wonder what utility ANY of you have for me.

[But Enough About Me]

I'm beginning to wonder what utility ANY of you have for me.

To ask is to answer.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

He was pulling his Johnson

[jarflax]

This is the definition of a reply isn't it?

[Lord Humungus]

German armed police smash their way into mosque and raid homes of group accused of radicalising Muslims and grooming them for jihad

Armed police officers have launched a raid on a mosque and several homes belonging to a group believed to be radicalising Muslims in Germany.

Apartments belonging to eight board members of the radical German-speaking Islamic group DIK were searched by officers in Hildesheim, Lower Saxony.

It comes as part of a crackdown on the group, which is thought to have been encouraging people to travel to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS.

The group ran sermons, seminars and lectures entitled 'the hatred of infidels', according to German media.

[Fist of Etiquette]

You know who else acted like Nazis?

[Citizen X]

Baathists?

[Doctor Whom]

Greens?

[Drake]

The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem?

[(((Renegade)))]

My ex-wives?

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Can you blame em?

[AlexInCT]

Wait, you tried marriage more than once? I hope you learned your lesson dood.

[Chip Woodier]

Every anti-communist group in occupied Europe?

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

The UAW?

[straffinrun]

The group ran sermons, seminars and lectures entitled 'the hatred of infidels', according to German media

Sounds like an insult to Erdogan. Better lock them up, Merkel.

[Free Society]

They should let them go to Syria with as many of their friends and family as possible. Then close the door behind them.

[ant1sthenes]

About time. I'm not saying you should have hate speech laws, but if you do, you best actually use them for genuinely dangerous people.

[Chip Woodier]

Every anti-communist group in occupied Europe?

[Chip Woodier]

[insert delete button here]

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Silicon Valley Could Get Pass in Democrats' Antitrust Crusade
...In this election cycle, Apple, Amazon.com and Google have all given three times as much to Democrats as Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a campaign finance watchdog. That's true of the industry as a whole. Since the 2012 presidential election cycle, Internet-based tech firms, including Facebook, Salesforce.com and eBay, gave 70 percent of their contributions, some $17.9 million, to Democrats.
Democrats' relationship with Big Tech also runs deeper than money. Eric Schmidt, chairman of Google's parent company Alphabet Inc., was recruited by the Democratic National Committee in 2014 to be part of a small group studying the party's election losses that year...

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Web's Reach Binds N.S.A. and Silicon Valley Leaders
WASHINGTON ? When Max Kelly, the chief security officer for Facebook, left the social media company in 2010, he did not go to Google, Twitter or a similar Silicon Valley concern. Instead the man who was responsible for protecting the personal information of Facebook's more than one billion users from outside attacks went to work for another giant institution that manages and analyzes large pools of data: the National Security Agency....

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Data Miners Liken Obama Voters To Caesars Gamblers
...As Steve Wozniak publicly laments how government used new technologies he introduced in unintended ways to monitor people, the NY Times reports how the digital masterminds behind the Obama Presidential campaign are cashing in by bringing the secret, technologically advanced formulas used for reaching voters to commercial advertisers. 'The plan is to bring the same Big Data expertise that guided the most expensive presidential campaign in history to companies and nonprofits,' explains Civis Analytics, which is backed by Google Chairman and Obama advisor Eric Schmidt. Also boasting senior members of Obama's campaign team is Analytics Media Group (A.M.G.), which pitched that 'keeping gamblers loyal to Caesars was not all that different from keeping onetime Obama voters from straying to Mitt Romney.'

[Longtorso, Johnny]

The extent to which the Obama campaign used the newest tech tools to look into people's lives was largely shrouded, the Times reports, but included data mining efforts that triggered Facebook's internal safeguard alarms. ... 'We asked to see [voter's Facebook] photos but really we were looking for who were tagged in photos with you, which was a really great way to dredge up old college friends ? and ex-girlfriends.' The Times also explains how the Obama campaign was able to out-optimize the Romney campaign on TV buys by obtaining set-top box TV show viewing information from cable companies for voters on the Obama campaign's 'persuadable voters' list. ...

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Data You Can Believe In
...The campaign's exhaustive use of Facebook triggered the site's internal safeguards. "It was more like we blew through an alarm that their engineers hadn't planned for or knew about," said St. Clair, who had been working at a small firm in Chicago and joined the campaign at the suggestion of a friend. "They'd sigh and say, 'You can do this as long as you stop doing it on Nov. 7.' " (Facebook officials say warning bells go off when the site sees large amounts of unusual activity, but in each case the company was satisfied the campaign was not violating its privacy and data standards.)...

[Citizen X]

Hey Longtorso, where've you been? And how soon can you go back there?

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Out banging hot chicks. No, you can't come.

[Citizen X]

Nobody who uses the phrase "banging hot chicks" to describe having sex has ever actually done it. It is known.

[AlexInCT]

You can say that again!

[Citizen X]

Nobody who uses the phrase "banging hot chicks" to describe having sex has ever actually done it. It is known.

[This Machine]

Ha, you can say that again!

*resumes banging hot chicks*

[(((Renegade)))]

X is banging hot squirrels.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

Hey, Johnny, here's the picture I took of you that you were asking about:

http://twiststreet.tumblr.com/post/52681079687

[Atanarjuat]

Pics?

[Chipwooder]

A friend of my wife's is married to Eric Schmidt's brother. At their wedding, he definitely seemed like a major-league asshole.

[Rufus The Monocled]

No matter. The stock continues to fly.

Fuck Facebook.

[Brett L]

My shocked face needs one of those Tile thingys, I can't find it anywhere.

[Fist of Etiquette]

"German Chancellor Angela Merkel, under pressure after two terror attacks by asylum seekers in the space of a week, said she was still convinced that Germany could handle the influx of migrants and refugees."

You know who else couldn't admit mistake?

[Brochettaward]

Frederick the Great?

[Citizen X]

Eugene, when he left out the 'to a' between 'admit' and 'mistake'?

[Just a thought not a sermon]

Oh, I thought it was a Yakof Smirnoff joke. In Russia, government mistake you!

[Citizen X]

Government mistake you all the way to gulag in Siberia, ????????! Do not pass bread line, do not collect 200 ruble'i.

[This Machine]

How are you getting Cyrillic into your comments? Do you have a keyboard macro or are you doing it the Alt+(numbers) html way?

[Citizen X]

I use Character Map. It came with Windows 7 on work computer.

[Fist of Etiquette]

It's still a grammatically valid phrasing in English. At the very least it's an elliptical construction.

[Rich]

And if you don't agree, you belong in hospital.

[Fist of Etiquette]

YOU SOUND LIKE A BRITISH PERSON, GET OUT OF HERE WITH THAT LIMEY SHITE.

[Citizen X]

He learnt it at university!

[Libertarian]

Whilst in London.

[commodious the clueless]

He's been to university.

[End Child Unemployment]

Where he studied maths.

Pluralizing math is hands down the most infuriating practice of the english untermensch.

[DJF]

"""Germany could handle the influx of migrants and refugees.""""

Or at least Merkel's personnel security team can keep her safe, as to the rest of Germany, suck it up.

[Fist of Etiquette]

You know who else had a bunker existence?

[Libertarian]

Edith?

[B.P.]

Tiger Woods, post-marital troubles?

[bacon-magic]

Hill?

[WhatAboutBob]

SJWs always double down!

[Bee Tagger]

Supporters of Bernie Sanders continue to protest inside and outside the Democratic National Convention.

Can't we all just rally together around the common cause of hating the Philadelphia Parking Authority?

[Root Boy]

And the liquor laws........oh, wait, those don't apply to the DNC, special dispensation.

[Doctor Whom]

OT: The NYT breathlessly reports the shocking discovery that markets and innovation can work.

[Lord Humungus]

Dems begin 'treason' talk against Trump

"He is inviting an aggressive country that we are really worried about to invade us," Sen. Claire McCaskill (Mo.) said on MSNBC. "This is ? this is ridiculous, and, frankly, it borders on treasonous."

"It's terrifying he's doing as well as he is," she added of the GOP's presidential nominee. "I don't think this is a man who has any interest in understanding the complexity of foreign policy."

Rep. Steve Israel (N.Y.) closely echoed McCaskill's concerns during his own interview with MSNBC on Wednesday.

"Well, that borders on treason. Never before have I heard of or seen a candidate not just for president, but for anything, invite a foreign spy agency to hack America's computers. It's one thing to be unfit for command, but today he's proved he's dangerously unfit for command."

[Brochettaward]

He hasn't invited anyone to hack anything. He simply said if you have these emails, please release them.

I've yet to here any coherent explanation for why Trump's behavior is disloyal to the country. If our enemies already have that information, and its the fault of Hillary Clinton, then the American voters have a right to know.

[Juvenile Bluster]

They really do believe that he's inviting Russia to engage in espionage against the United States.

A sample from one of my multitudinous progressive friends:

This is just going to end up as a pissing match...but oh well. I'm not a fan of Hillary. I've read some seriously shady shit about her. That said, if we're going to talk about character, she has never called, to my recollection (and I do not have a perfect memory) for another country to engage in espionage against our country like Trump did today.

"Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,". "I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press."

The "he isn't a politician and isn't a public speaker" defense I heard tonight from a Trump supporter on my hockey team does not fucking fly with me on this one.

To be clear I'm not screaming from the mountain top that Trump is guilty of treason. It's not even close. It's not even the same motherfucking ballpark. But it is one of the most reckless and self serving comments I have ever heard from a political candidate.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

"she has never called, to my recollection (and I do not have a perfect memory) for another country to engage in espionage against our country like Trump did today."

No, she's merely enabled and encouraged it with her home-based server.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Exactly. What the fuck is wrong with people?

[Free Society]

For all practical purposes Hilary actually did invite foreign intelligence agencies as well as every low level hacker in Romania to have access to state department emails. And now Trump is the one supposed to be taking the heat? Bravo progressives.

[straffinrun]

They did lock the Youtube dude up. Consistent. Safe. Reliable. Centrist.

[SugarFree]

"Like, with a cloth?"

[WTF]

How the fuck badly do you have torture your thinking process to arrive at the conclusion that asking Russia to release the emails if they have them is treason, but illegally placing that information on an unsecured private server which compromised national security in the first place is just fine?

[commodious the clueless]

Forget it, Jake, it's progressive town.

[Citizen X]

Thinking isn't for arriving at conclusions, it's for rationalizing the conclusions that you've already reached via emotions. Duh.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

The server is locked in an FBI vault. It won't be hacked now or in the future. If Russia has emails, it already took them.

[UnCivilServant]

The Russians had the e-mails before the intended recipients did.

[WTF]

And likely also the Chinese, the Israelis, the Brits, the Germans....

[Eternal Blue Sky]

Yeah, if the FBI is stupid enough to connect that server to a network again... than frankly America doesn't deserve to have any secrets.

[ant1sthenes]

He used to be a Democrat, and he's inviting Russia to dick the Democrat's grab for the One Ring. Treason against the Party, which is the only sort that Democrats care about as most of them are entirely comfortable with treason against the people and the nation.

[Bee Tagger]

They did it, they found the right combination of words to destroy Trump. Phew, rest easy now.

[Atanarjuat]

Comically, they think this one actually helps Hillary and hurts Trump.

[Rich]

"frankly, it borders on treasonous."

Bring it on, clown.

[WTF]

Exposing classified and Special Access Program material to espionage on a private unsecured server is just fine and dandy, however.

[Eternal Blue Sky]

ASKING FOR THE RELEASE OF EMAILS THAT ~TOTALLY~ HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH NATIONAL MATTERS IS TREASON!!

What's that?? It's the sound of your narrative shattering under your own attack.

[Libertarian]

"I don't think this is a man who has any interest in understanding the complexity of foreign policy."

I, too, long for the nuanced days of "we came, we saw, he died."

[CE]

As opposed to leaving your classified email in an unprotected private server, inviting them to hack?

And all of sudden Democrats are all for filing felony charges against a presidential candidate. Are they sure they want to go there?

[Bee Tagger]

Hillary Clinton will speak tonight at the Democratic National Convention.

Thanks for the reminder to stay off Twitter, tonight.

[Atanarjuat]

tonight

[But Enough About Me]

Elegant in its apex simplicity. I bow to you, good sir/madam.

[Citizen X]

Speaking at the Democratic National Convention last night, President Barack Obama urged the country to support Hillary Clinton over "homegrown demagogues" like Donald Trump.

While certainly a demagogue, Hillary is not homegrown, unless your idea of "home" extends to the court of the Yellow King on the lost plateau of Leng.

[Eternal Blue Sky]

#HighPriestNotToBeDescribedLivesMatter

[Citizen X]

Speaking at the Democratic National Convention last night, President Barack Obama urged the country to support Hillary Clinton over "homegrown demagogues" like Donald Trump.

While certainly a demagogue, Hillary is not homegrown, unless your idea of "home" extends to the court of the Yellow King on the lost plateau of Leng.

[Lord Humungus]

What Hillbilly Elegy Reveals About Trump and America

In the realm of race, sex, and class, the pandering to groups goes beyond bad economics and government waste ? and even beyond the injustice of fleecing those who work to support those who choose not to ? and into the dangerous territory of pitting Americans against one another. Democrats have mastered the art of sowing discord to reap votes.

Now they have company in the Trumpites. Like Democrats who encourage their target constituencies to nurse grievances against "greedy" corporations, banks, Republicans, and government for their problems, Trump now encourages his voters to blame Mexicans, the Chinese, a "rigged system," or stupid leaders for theirs.

The problems of the white working class should concern every public-spirited American not because they've been forgotten or taken for granted ? even those terms strike a false note for me ? but because they are fellow Americans. How would one adjust public policy to benefit the white working class and not blacks, Hispanics, and others? How would that work? And who would shamelessly support policies based on tribal or regional loyalties and not the general welfare?

[Brett L]

I'm actually going to read this book. I read an interview with the author and he was pushing back against whatever conservative magazine interviewer was serving him. And the story he was telling was compelling.

[Free Society]

And who would shamelessly support policies based on tribal or regional loyalties and not the general welfare?

Every conceivable minority group.

[commodious never even met you]

While not inevitably corrupt, the whole transactional nature of the business does easily tend toward corruption.

Never thought I would accuse Mona Charon, who always sounds like she's on the verge of breaking into tears, of being optimistic.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Has there been dumbass crying Democrat supporters at the convention?

I swear you can place a pack of asparagus at the mic with Gilbert Gottfried acting as a voice over and they'll still cry as long as it covers the dang talking points and sticks to the narrative.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

I can't blame them. I'm pretty sure I'd be crying if I were at the convention, too. In between the bouts of projectile vomiting, I mean.

[Citizen X]

And farting. Don't forget farting.

[Rich]

That reminds me. Whatever happened to "Smellovision"?

[(((Renegade)))]

Polyester did it first.

[Libertarian]

Not quite. From Wikipedia:

Smell-O-Vision was a system that released odor during the projection of a film so that the viewer could "smell" what was happening in the movie. The technique was created by Hans Laube and made its only appearance in the 1960 film Scent of Mystery, produced by Mike Todd, Jr., son of film producer Mike Todd. The process injected 30 odors into a movie theater's seats when triggered by the film's soundtrack.

[Juice]

I love that movie.

"Oh, how droll."

[Brett L]

I don't know about AT the convention, but reading FB, there are a number of people I know that were masturbating publicly about this or that speaker. It was a fever pitch last night, because I was in Tallahassee so long, so many of my TLH friends are party Democrats, and the mayor of TLH -- who has a fondness for craft beer and seems to not be the usual machine guy -- was speaking.

[Libertarian]

Bloomberg got some laughs. I guess I've never listened to him so much, because he sounded a lot like a, well, a lot like what people used to refer to as a "confirmed bachelor."

[benji]

I saw all sorts of people crying when Obama was speaking. And reaching out towards him.

[Lord Humungus]

eww...

[Bee Tagger]

President Barack Obama urged the country to support Hillary Clinton over "homegrown demagogues" like Donald Trump.

If we're supposed to eat locally, I suppose we should politic locally.

[BigT]

In case you missed this excellent DNC trolling...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8A7AviPLc28

[Brian]

I love how the dems are trying to keep clapping, but have to stop whenever a republican president went across the screen.

"FDR! Yeah, oh JFK! How dreamy! Nixon, nooooo, Carter! Woo hoo!, oh no it's Reagan and bush! REAGAN! Haunting my nightmares! Oh, it's Clinton One! Love it! BOOOOOSH! No! Ah, there's Obama. Better now.

Now, we can't have Hillary Clinton smash Obamas face, so, pullback on mosaic and...boom! The cackling old hag behind door number three! Beautiful!"

[Lord Humungus]

Libertarian Super City!

San Francisco marijuana use scores highest in the nation

Over 15 percent of San Franciscans age 12 and over used pot in the last month, which the Washington Post called "the highest rate in the country".

San Francisco spearheaded both the adult-use and medical cannabis movements, beginning in the late '60s. Today it sports record-low unemployment and record-high housing prices as local innovators reshape the global marketplace.

Southern Texas near the Mexico border sports the lowest pot use rates at less than four percent.

Nationally, about 7.7 percent of Americans 12 and older used weed in the last month ? 20.3 million people. Personal cannabis use is a federal crime, and about 700,000 people will get arrested for it this year. Americans consume an estimated 4,000 to 8,000 metric tons of marijuana each year.

[Brochettaward]

They have plenty of buttsex and Mexicans, as well. It's not all about the weed, after all.

[You Sound Like a Prog (MJG)]

Don't they have private cops, as well?

[commodious never even met you]

Over 15 percent of San Franciscans age 12 and over used pot in the last month, which the Washington Post called "the highest rate in the country".

And...?

[Krabappel]

I'd have to smoke a lot of weed to put up with the idiotic opinions of your average San Franciscan.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Ever notice how Hirsi Ali is ignored by the left and mainstream?

http://www.newcriterion.com/

Maybe because this has something to do with it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCcvexAXEjM

[Juvenile Bluster]

They don't ignore her. They outright despise her and dismiss her as a "racist" and "Islamophobe".

[benji]

Marc A. Thiessen says this is what the Democrats get for opposing the CIA and NSA spying

Over at the CIA and the National Security Agency headquarters, they must be really enjoying watching Democrats in Philadelphia squirm over WikiLeaks's exposure of tens of thousands of internal Democratic Party emails. There's a word for what is happening in the intelligence community:

Blowback.

Throughout the entirety of the Obama administration, nothing was done as WikiLeaks damaged our national security with its serial leaks of highly classified intelligence documents.

Now Democrats are paying the price for Obama's inaction. And WikiLeaks promises there is more to come. In an interview with CNN this week, Assange said he might soon release "a lot more material." That should have Democrats terrified.

Apparently, exposing intelligence sources and methods has not mattered enough for the Obama administration to do something about WikiLeaks. Maybe saving Hillary Clinton from further embarrassment, or worse, will finally spur them to action.

[benji]

Democrats have no one to blame but themselves for this debacle. As I pointed out in The Post on August 2010, there were many steps the Obama administration could have taken to stop WikiLeaks. It could have indicted Assange and his fellow WikiLeaks staffers and made clear that the United States will not tolerate any country ? particularly NATO allies ? providing them with a haven. They could have sought their extradition and ? if the countries where they were hiding refused to cooperate ? used existing Justice Department authorities to arrest them anywhere in the world, with or without those countries' consent. They could have used the assets of U.S. Cyber Command to carry out cyberattacks on WikiLeaks servers to disrupt its ability to disseminate classified information that puts lives at risk.

[Jerryskids]

They could have sought their extradition and ? if the countries where they were hiding refused to cooperate ? used existing Justice Department authorities to arrest them anywhere in the world, with or without those countries' consent. They could have used the assets of U.S. Cyber Command to carry out cyberattacks on WikiLeaks servers to disrupt its ability to disseminate classified information that puts lives at risk.

I'm sure you left out the part where Thiessen suggested if all else fails they could just send in a team of CIA assassins. According to Thiessen, all that stands between us and chaos is the thin black line of the national intelligence agencies that you're an unpatriotic piece of shit for daring to question or criticize or even look at too closely. Why don't you just trust your government completely and absolutely?

And nevermind that when the government is in the hands of Barack Obama, Thiessen himself seems to have no problem whatsoever not trusting them, second-guessing their decision not to go after Wikileaks. Fuck you, Thiessen - you think you know more than the President of the United States about what all security issues are involved here? Where's your trust in your government now, you unpatriotic piece of shit?

[Agammamon]

Well, he certainly leaves out the part where *simply publishing classified information someone passes on to you is not necessarily illegal* - and the last few times indictments have been secured and prosecutions attempted they've failed.

So I'd say it was damn near accepted precedent that if you haven't accepted an affirmative duty to protect classified material then you have no such duty.

[BigT]

"United States will not tolerate any country ? particularly NATO allies ? providing them with a haven"

Ecuador is in NATO? Who knew?

[Longtorso, Johnny]

WikiLeaks' moral high ground depends on its ability to act as an honest conduit. Right now it's acting like a damaged filter.
? Journalist Emma Grey Ellis suggests that the credibility of WikiLeaks is being undermined by its recent dumps of D.N.C. and Turkish government emails.

[Agammamon]

Yep. All Wikileaks fault that they don't *hack people themselves* and only publish what others hand to them.

[Red Rocks Okey-Dokein]

These people were happy enough when Wikileaks published all the stuff that Manning sent them.

[Root Boy]

It has to be a deserving target according to the MSM. Someone pointed out that the NYT asked for crowd sourcing help in exploring Sarah Palin's hacked emails but curiously hasn't done the same with the DNC emails.

[kbolino]

Apparently, exposing intelligence sources and methods has not mattered enough for the Obama administration to do something about WikiLeaks.

What? Bradley/Chelsea Manning will spend the rest of his/her life in jail, Edward Snowden is Russia's bitch, and Julian Assange will probably never leave the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

What more, exactly, is the Obama administration supposed to do? DDOS the Wikileaks servers? We can't charge foreigners who've never owed allegiance to the U.S. with treason against the U.S. Are we supposed to go to war with Russia and Ecuador?

[Jerryskids]

Turkey has now shut down 130 media outlets in the wake of the failed coup.

I remember once my grandma's turkey coup failed and the turkeys got out and started a war on Christmas.

[Cdr Lytton]

Will Erdogan deal with the turkeys like Arthur Carlson?

[Lord Humungus]

Joe Cunningham ?@JoePCunningham 18h18 hours ago
Guys what if Hillary is a plant to win Trump the election

[UnCivilServant]

She is for sale, but I don't think the power-grasping hag would take a dive for anyone, or any amount of money in this contest.

[straffinrun]

Look at UnCiv dashing Huma's dreams.

[Atanarjuat]

She's so little! And so beautiful!

[Eternal Blue Sky]

You're not thinking about this with enough tinfoil.

The power-grasping hag will cause herself do take a dive even if she's not actively trying. She's THAT unlikable!! And everyone KNOWS she's unlikable!! So why would the DNC establishment like her any better?? Why did no other candidate stand a chance at winning the Democratic nomination/coronation??

Trump must have paid off not Clinton, but the DNC, to force upon the Democrat voters the most unlikable hag in existence!! Now Trump's victory is assured!!

Then, after Trump's run the country into the ground for eight years (after which he'll stop caring about politics because his legacy is secured), the DNC can come back and say "See, you ignorant voters just have to trust that we elites know better than you." and then the DNC can nominate whoever they want without consulting the people, with the threat of "returning to the Trump era" to keep everyone in line.

/tinfoil

[BigT]

"She is for sale, but I don't think the power-grasping hag would take a dive for anyone"

Huma has a sad.

[Bee Tagger]

I feel like I just drank some THC-polluted Colorado water.

[Jerryskids]

Hell, I said that sseveral months ago. The conspiracy theory was that Bill talked Trump into running as a way to guarantee his wife's success but what if Hillary was the stalking horse for Trump? You get the same results either way since both candidates are liberal Dems, but with Trump you'll have nominal conservatives cheering him on when he implements Hillary's agenda.

[BigT]

"Guys what if Hillary is a plant to win Trump the election"

VENUS flytrap?

Amorphophallus titanum (Corpse plant)?

[Longtorso, Johnny]

New stricter sexual-assault laws in Germany are making refugee activists uneasy
BERLIN ? After mass sexual assaults in Cologne on New Year's Eve, the German Parliament voted Thursday in favor of a stricter sexual-assault law that also could ease deportation rules for refugees convicted of sex-related offenses.

The new law sharpens punishments for anyone convicted of sexual assault regardless of nationality, but it specifies jail-then-deportation rules for convicted refugees who have sought asylum in Germany....

[Drake]

Refugees prefer easy activists?

[Agammamon]

Why would you need *stricter* laws? Its already illegal - that's not stopping people. Maybe if they would *actually* face a courtroom and multi-year sentence? Not a slap on the hand and the amusement of seeing the rest of the country being told to 'dress properly' and wear 'don't rape me bro' bracelets.

[Agammamon]

Personally I think the next time someone grabs a euro-chicks arm they get a low-voiced 'I am neither a goat nor your sister' and then a sharp kabob knife in the gut.

[Rich]

Office workers must exercise for an hour a day to counter death risk

Scientists said sedentary lifestyles were now posing as great a threat to public health as smoking, and were causing more deaths than obesity.

That's why I always do squats while commenting here.

Thanks, Warty!

[paranoid android]

I was really scared when my doctor informed me that I'm at a 100% risk for death in my lifetime.

[Brian]

Better than farming accidents.

[This Machine]

Speaking at the Democratic National Convention last night, President Barack Obama urged the country to support Hillary Clinton over "homegrown demagogues" like Donald Trump.

Apparently he referred to himself over a hundred times in his own speech. It's like they're begging for Trump to win.

[Rich]

The Dems are so *apparently* tone-deaf that I attribute it to FYTW.

[benji]

heh, just for fun, not taking shots...

last night I was looking for an older article and came across this prediction from John some time back:

John|7.18.07 @ 3:40PM|#|?|filternamelinkcustom

Yes we can end the occupation and declare victory and go home. But when that happens, the betting seems to be that Al Quada takes over Iraq or a good part of it and turns it into Afghanistan West, only this time with Iranian protrection and probably in a three or four years Iranian nukes. What happens then? Al Quada pulls another 9-11 or two being supported and protected by a nuclear armed Iran? Would have made things a bit sticky wouldn't it have? Do you really think that Europe, then within range of Iranian missiles would support action against Iran after another 9-11? Hell no. There would be deniability and lying and calls for peace and negotiations and meanwhile, the US will be left powerless to do anything without running the risk of starting a nuclear war. The whole world will fold and supplicate themselves before the Iranians and abandon the US to avoid that. The US will be like the Corleone family after the drug dealer gets the protection of the cop. All the families will turn against them just to prevent a nuclear war. I have a feeling that once Iran has the bomb, the US will get hit and hit hard and will continue to get hit with impunity. That is the future.

[benji]

At this point what does the US do? In all seriousnes, why not just pay them and make some adjustments to our culture and hope they leave us alone because clearly fighting them is not an option, if a war that causes 20,000 casualties in a nation of 300 million is too much to bear.

I am sure a few hundred billion a year and the agrement to crack down on Hollywood and pornography and the like, would probably keep them off of our backs for a while anyway and be cheaper than fighting them.

[John]

That last part was sarcastic. But given how things have unfolded since then, I really don't see how I was wrong. Do you?

[benji]

I think you didn't hear Obama last night, the world is better off because of him and loves Hillary now, which prevented all your predictions.

Especially the Iran deal which retroactively prevented them from getting a nuclear weapon in 2010 like you promised.

Obama debunks John yet again!

[John]

What happens when Al Quada takes over a large part of Iraq? We are finding that out only it is called ISIS. And no, Iran hasn't gotten the bomb yet, but they started violating the agreement from day one and it seems pretty clear they are likely to have one in the next few years.

The only thing I switched up was Iran backing Al Quada. Iran hates ISIS, but they have their own terrorist organizations. I would only modify my statement in that Iran is likely to go after the Sunni Gulf states before they go after Europe or us. But they will get around to us if they can.

[benji]

I'm just poking at ya because the prediction is so Bill Kristol level sure about everything and you were asking Weigal how many people needed to die for him to be happy,

You should see some of the Presidential predictions in the same threads. Bill Richardson has the Democratic nomination all locked up! Sam Brownback is a serious contender!

[John]

Of course it was sure. That is the fun of the internet. And trolling people like Weigal is almost as fun as porn or watching videos of people's cats.

[WTF]

I guess substitute "ISIS" for Al Qaeda and lengthen the timeline, it doesn't actually seem too far off. Although the supplication of the Europeans could come into question if their increasing terrorism problem continues.

[Brochettaward]

I'm confused as to why Iran would support Al Qaeada in power. Shiites would naturally dominate a democratic Iraq. They have the legitimate government in their pocket already. I mean, providing them some weapons to kill Americans is one thing, but Iran has and had no interest in a radical Sunni state on its borders.

[WTF]

Sure, Iran not supporting ISIS as far as we know, as I said, it isn't completely accurate, but not too bad as to the general direction of things.

[Eternal Blue Sky]

"but not too bad as to the general direction of things"

Ha!! Look, the only nation dumb enough to protect PEOPLE WHO WANT THEM DEAD with their nuclear arsenal is the US of A. I'm PRETTY DAMN SURE the SHIA THEOCRACY does not want to support a violent Sunni extremist nation on their borders that ACTIVELY kills Shiites, destroys their holy places, and calls the Shiites apostates and idolaters.

This proposed Iran/ISIS conspiracy theory is more tinfoil than even the many intentionally tinfoil conspiracy theories I've come up with over the years.

[John]

Iran wants to be the regional super power in the Middle East. They are not going to let Western Powers meddle there if they ever are. Again, if things were as simple as you think they are, we could just align with Iran to take on ISIS.

[WTF]

The fuck are you going on about? I specifically said the ISIS/Iran connection was not a thing. Why not just try to stop arguing with things that only exist in your head and try reading what people actually write?

[Eternal Blue Sky]

John. The hell made you ever think that a Radical Shia Nation would ever allow Sunni Extremists to take over a Shia-Majority Nation without a fight, much less BACK UP a Sunni Extremist Organization with the threat of MAD??

That's fucking dumb.

"Hey Ahmad, I have an idea!!"

"What's that Sohrab??"

"You know those extremists who took over the neighboring Shia country?? The ones that say we're idolaters and apostates and want to kill us all??"

"Of course!!"

"LET'S TELL THE WORLD THAT IF ANYONE TRIES TO STOP THEM WE'LL NUKE THAT PERSON IN RETALIATION!! THE TERRORISTS WHO WANT TO KILL US ALL WILL BE OFFICIALLY UNDER OUR PROTECTION!!"

"Why that is BRILLIANT Sohrab!! That is clearly the wisest plan anyone could ever make!! Where did you get such a brilliantly suicidal idea??"

"Some infidel named John. He's a genius when it comes to Middle Eastern politics!! VERY knowledgeable about the Shia/Sunni divide and its long history of conflict!!"

[John]

John. The hell made you ever think that a Radical Shia Nation would ever allow Sunni Extremists to take over a Shia-Majority Nation without a fight, much less BACK UP a Sunni Extremist Organization with the threat of MAD??

Because the world isn't as simple as you think it is and the Iranians are a bit smarter than you think. Long term, the Iranians would like to kill them. But that doesn't mean they are unwilling to use them when they suit their purposes. The Iranians don't want ISIS to take over all of Iraq, but they are fine letting ISIS sit there and attack the West. And they certainly would take ISIS side against the Infidel. By your logic we should be able to just align ourselves with Iran and go after ISIS. I doubt that seriously.

If Iran had the bomb, it would claim the Middle East as its sphere of influence and threaten any Western Power who intervened there. Indeed, there are a good number of people who view Iran getting the bomb as a good thing because it would make it impossible for the US to intervene anywhere in the Middle East without facing the threat of Iranian nuclear weapons.

[Eternal Blue Sky]

WHY??

"But that doesn't mean they are unwilling to use them when they suit their purposes"

Iraq's CURRENT GOVERNMENT is practically Iran's ALLY. Why the hell would you think they WANT /SUNNI EXTREMISTS/ to occupy their NEIGHBORING ALLY?? That's what you think is a "smart move"?? I reiterate. You're some kind of GENIUS when it comes to Middle Eastern politics!!

So the loss is one neighbor. What would they gain for their "purposes"?? ISIS, yes, would attack "the West", but I don't know if you actually pay attention to what actually happens in the Middle East, but ISIS attacks NEIGHBORING COUNTRIES a HELL OF A LOT MORE than it attacks the West.

It'd be like if a violent state existed in Mexico, one that threatened our borders and killed Americans on a DAILY basis, and you with your genius political strategy advocated letting this violent Mexican state on our border continue to exist, and even said we should PROTECT IT with MAD doctrine, just because OCCASSIONALLY this Mexican state attacked our enemies.

FUCKING BRILLIANT!!

Frankly I don't understand why you don't have the top job in America's global strategies. No, seriously. With the state of America's "smart power at its best" I think you'd be a perfect fit for the job.

[Eternal Blue Sky]

"if things were as simple as you think they are, we could just align with Iran to take on ISIS."

We actually ARE, we're just not /openly/ allying. Something you'd know if you knew anything about Middle Eastern current events. But if you understood THAT topic you'd understand why no Shia/Wahhabi Super Alliance is ever possible.

[Eternal Blue Sky]

I guess the Iranian forces combating ISIS must just be a ruse. All part of their masterful 10-dimensional chess game, Machiavellian scheming, and Game-of-Thrones level complex political plots and betrayals.

[John]

The Iranian forces are fighting ISIS. That does not mean that Iran would tolerate the US moving back into Iraq if they had the ability to prevent it. The Russians are at war with the Ukraine. That, however, doesn't mean they would tolerate a few US divisions rolling through the Ukraine even if the US was making war on them.

You don't understand what a sphere of influence is and think everything Iran does is driven by the goal of destroying the Sunni at any cost. No, that is not reality. Sure, the Iranians hate the Sunnis. But killing the Sunnis isn't their ultimate goal. Their ultimate goal is to be the dominant power in the Middle East and for Western influence over and intervention in the Middle East to end. If destroying ISIS comes at the price of the US setting up shop in Iraq again, Iran most certainly will side with ISIS against the US. They can deal with ISIS later. The primary goal is get the US out and themselves in as the regional hegimon.

There is more to what is going on than just Shia Sunni hatred.

[Azathoth!!]

Why do you keep reposting this 9 year old prediction?

John's not psychic! OMFG!!!!!11!!oneone!eleven.

HA! HA! He didn't know everything 9 years ago!! HA!

THAT shows you.

[John]

This thing with Trump asking for the Russians to give up Hillary's emails is a perfect example of why the media and political class are so unable to deal with him. The political and media elite are all nerds who are compared to the average American socially maladjusted and not very adept at picking up social cues outside of their insular social group. Trump preys on them mercilessly as a result. They are what I call alpha nerds. They are not the kids who became scientists and engineers, they are the ones who did model UN and the debate club and all the other things that help your college application but normal kids are having too much fun to take very seriously. Washington is the national capital of alpha nerds. They run the entire city.

Everyone in America except the media and knew Trump was joking and did not mean it literally. It was the kind of joke someone makes over a beer "maybe the Russians will give the FBI Hillary's emails". Being nerds and not getting the joke, the media and Democrats went insane and ended up admitting Hillary's email problem is a national security issue. Like all nerds, they always take the bait.

[John]

They are kids who always get picked on because they can't understand that showing something has gotten to you only ensures people will do it more.

The way to deal with Trump is not take the bait he puts out. Deal with his humor and poking with your own. The Hillary campaign should have said something like "Hillary lost some good recipes and pictures of her grand kids when those emails were deleted. She would like them back too". That would have defused the entire thing and made Trump look petty. But being over earnest nerds who lacked the social sophistication to see what was happening and took the bait. They just can't help themselves. Trump is like the class clown picking on the teacher's pet. They really don't stand a chance.

[VG Zaytsev]

LOL

I had just read your analysis, and then saw Nicole Wallace on morning joke literally say that Trump is cyber bullying the media.
Poor dears.

[John]

It is no surprise at all he has apparently destroyed the career of Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz is the ultimate alpha nerd. And he didn't stand a chance against Trump. His speech at the convention and his subsequent whining about Trump attacking his wife is nothing but an adult version of the nerdy kid in 8th grade who always gets picked on because everyone knows the insults will make him cry.

The way you deal with someone making political attacks on your wife is not dignify it with a response. That is what media hacks are for. Let your media allies and supporters play the "have you no shame" card. You just ignore it and treat it as being unworthy of a response. That makes you look big and the person doing it look small and the attack look small. But, like the kid who always takes the bait when the other kids tease him, Cruz couldn't do that. He had to get upset and in doing so made himself look small and like the issue was serious and he had something to hide.

[Heedless]

There is literally nothing Cruz could have done in repose to Trump's attack on his wife that would have satisfied you.

If he'd let surrogates respond, you would have accused him of being unmanly for not sticking up for his wife.

If he'd made light of the issue, ditto.

If he had made a reciprocal attack on Melania, you would have been outraged at his lack of class.

You are simply a member of Trump's tribe. His enemies are your enemies; his friend are your friends, and rainfall thought only endures into it in order to justify already-arrived-at positions.

[John]

You think that but I disagree. We can never live the counterfactual. So there is no way I can convince you. I will only point to the fact that last week when all of this was happening I said Paul did the right think not going to the convention and made himself look much better than Cruz did by going but refusing to endorse Trump. If i didn't criticize Paul for staying away and saying nothing, I don't see why you can conclude I would have criticized Cruz for doing the same thing.

I have also said on numerous occasions that one of the reasons why media attacks that have killed Republican candidates in the past seem to have no effect on Trump, is because Trump doesn't back down and act defensive. When the media accused Romney of hating women, he produced his infamous "binders of women" and accomplished nothing except to make himself look defensive and the casual observer to conclude there must be something to the charge. The media accuses Trump of being a sexist and as far as I can tell he doesn't even respond. He just keeps coming with his own narrative and the attack bounces off of him as a result.

So my contention that acting defensive and taking attacks personally just makes the candidate look defensive and like there is something to that attack is not new or something that I have invented to apply to Cruz.

[Azathoth!!]

The whole thing started with an attack on Melania.

Why does everyone forget that?

Trump responded as if Cruz had attacked his wife--with an attack on Cruz' wife.

Childish.

But Trump did not start it.

[Heedless]

There is literally nothing Cruz could have done in repose to Trump's attack on his wife that would have satisfied you.

If he'd let surrogates respond, you would have accused him of being unmanly for not sticking up for his wife.

If he'd made light of the issue, ditto.

If he had made a reciprocal attack on Melania, you would have been outraged at his lack of class.

You are simply a member of Trump's tribe. His enemies are your enemies; his friend are your friends, and rational thought only makes an appearance in order to justify already-arrived-at positions.

[Isaac Bartram]

I'm fairly sure that TX voters will return Ted Cruz in the 2018 election and any others in the future. Unlike Marco Rubio, he won't have to unburn any bridges to run.

So, while his ascendancy may have been halted I think it's not accurate to say his political career has been destroyed.

Senator for Life of the second biggest state sounds like a pretty good gig to me. Although given that John Cornyn is only 64 It could be 20 or 30 years before he gets to be senior Senator.

[BigT]

"Trump is like the class clown picking on the teacher's pet."

John, that's beautiful. Sometimes you really are insightful.

[benji]

Panetta disagrees:

Panetta told the network it was "totally outrageous" for the Republican presidential nominee to say he hoped Russia got a hold of the emails Hillary Clinton deleted from the private server she used when she was secretary of State.

"You've got now a presidential candidate who is, in fact, asking the Russians to engage in American politics," said Panetta, who has endorsed Clinton in the White House race.

"I just think that that's beyond the pale," he continued. "I think that kind of statement only reflects the fact that he truly is not qualified to be president of the United States."

[benji]

Christiane Amanpour ? @camanpour
Fmr. CIA Dir. Panetta on Trump call for Russia HRC hacking: Trump's loyalty to U.S. in question & possible "conspiracy" with a foreign power

[WTF]

Trump wasn't calling for "hacking" - the emails were deleted, and the server wiped (with like a cloth?), so there is nothing to hack. If they have them they got them while Hillary was running State business on an unsecured private server. while Secretary of State.

[This Machine]

Panetta can blow it out his ass.

[John]

I am sure he does. Panetta is exactly the kind of nerd I am talking about. He took the statement literally. The joke and sarcasm in it went right over Panetta's head. He actually thought Trump was encouraging and hoping the Russians spied on Hillary instead of making a joke pointing out the very real possibility that this occurred.

Panetta walked right into it here. Normal America got the joke and isn't going to believe that Trump is somehow on the Russian's side. So all of his attacks on Trump being unfit for office will have no effect. What will have an effect, however, is the unstated assumption that Hillary's email problem is an issue of national security. Panetta just told America that Hillary's email server is such a serious issue, we can't even joke about it. I don't think that was the message he was trying to convey. But being a nerd, he ended up conveying it without even realizing it.

[benji]

Hillary was found innocent! There was no classified material so Trump couldn't have compromised national security! But he still committed treason! And a felony!

He's Putin's lapdog! Even though the cold war's over, the 1980's called, they want their foreign policy back Governor Romney!

[Cdr Lytton]

I think Panetta stepped into it even deeper. He just brought up "loyalty to U.S. in question & possible 'conspiracy' with a foreign power" and the first thing that comes to mind is Clinton's term as SoS and foreign donations to the Clinton Slush Fund.

[VG Zaytsev]

They seem to think that Trump's a time traveler.

[Chipwooder]

hah....longtime Clinton crony Panetta attacks her opponent. I'm blown away.

[Agammamon]

Why is it every other time we need to get buy-in from the rest of the world but *here* its completely inappropriate?

[Red Rocks Okey-Dokein]

Why the fuck should we care about what career Democratic hack Leon Panetta thinks?

[This Machine]

They are not the kids who became scientists and engineers, they are the ones who did model UN and the debate club and all the other things that help your college application but normal kids are having too much fun to take very seriously.

Y'know what, you're probably pretty spot on with that. All the Spergy shit they're pulling, taking jokes too literally and throwing a tantrum about it, is probably why the public's trust in the media is so low. How many political reporters/commentators/pundits/etc. working for a major network or newspaper would you actually want to sit down and have a beer with? I can probably count 'em on one hand.

[John]

I am a little bit of an alpha nerd myself. I was never earnest or hard working enough to be a real alpha nerd. But I certainly can pass in their circles. For all of their claims to sophistication, they are incredibly insular and socially unsophisticated. Take them out of their social group and they are completely unable to cope. This is why they can't understand the rest of country. They can't see social cues when they are outside of their own social group. So for example, they can't fathom that the confederate flag has become an all purpose regional pride symbol and that most people in the south don't associate it with slavery and all of that. In their social group, it is assumed to be evil and racist. So they can't fathom that a white person could fly it and not be racist or that even black people will fly it. They are not sophisticated enough to step out of their own insular bubble to understand that.

[Knarf the Yenrab]

Trump preys on them mercilessly

Trump is rewriting the book on how to campaign in the age of social media. The ease with which he dominated the news cycle--he stole the limelight from Obama in what will probably be BHO's final speech of any importance--is another reminder of how potent a political force he is.

The MSM is dying, and this election cycle is a preview of the mark-off outrage we're going to see for the next decade as social media pundits and outlets like Breitbart & Drudge slowly bleed the WaPo and NYT.

[John]

I think you are absolutely right about that. The other thing that is dying is the traditional model of a campaign, with big ad buys and volunteers out knocking on doors and robo calls and all of that. Hillary has hundreds of millions of dollars and is doing all of that and more. It is having absolutely no effect on Trump. Meanwhile, Trump doesn't seem to have anything like a traditional campaign organization and is doing none of that. Instead, he is using social media and the new media to dominate the news cycle to devastating effect.

There are going to be a lot of very interesting and unpredictable second order effects of that. If you don't need a big organization, you don't need high paid consultants. You also don't need big money donors and bundlers. A whole lot of people who today have a ton of access and influence over our government are going to be out of business. If politicians don't need millions in campaign donations, how the hell does K Street operate?

[Illocust]

The thing with that is, this style of campaign only works if you are a great media manipulator like Trump. Most politicians can't pull off what Trump is pulling off. If you don't have the personality to make the media cover you and look like fools themselves while doing so, you have to rely on the old ad buys and knocking on doors.

[John]

That is true. In the past, you couldn't run a campaign like this even if you were a master media manipulator. Everyone had to be a traditional politician because you had to be one to run a successful campaign. Trump is proving that if you know how to use the media, you don't have to be a traditional politician to win.

Trump isn't the only person who knows how to use the media. So, perhaps this also signals the end of the traditional politician as other people who know how to use and manipulate the media move into politics and crowd out the traditional politicians whose skills have been made obsolete.

Trump might be a one of a kind or once in a generation politician such that no one else will be able to recreate what he has done. If he is not, however, I think we will see a wholesale change in the political class and the type of person who succeeds in politics. Given the record of our current political class, I can't help but think that will be a good thing.

[CE]

Trump's style also works only if you are already a celebrity. Career politicians don't have the guts to try his strategies.

[BigT]

Rob Ford? Jesse Ventura? Arnold?

[Knarf the Yenrab]

We're going to see a lot more interest in the art of persuasion after Trump finishes the job in November. It's difficult to see American politics through the same lens after watching him go from joke candidate to dominant populist conqueror in the span of a year.

I've been working through Scott Adams' persuasion reading list for the past week, and I'm more convinced than ever that Trump's approach is the future of successful right-wing politicians. The left can get by with Hollywood and wag the dog bs, but the right is going to be going guerrilla politically for the foreseeable future.

[John]

That is probably true. The thing is that what we thought was political persuation and is sold to candidates by consultants, the TV ads and all that, is not in fact very persuasive. Everyone just assumed it was. The success of Trump and the failure of consultant driven campaigns like that of Jeb Bush is going to change all of that.

[CE]

True dat. Most people change the channel when a political ad appears. They are worse than useless, they annoy people.

[Brian]

That sounds more beta nerd than alpha nerd.

"I'm too stupid to get past long division, but I can suck a politician's cock while running a policy focus group!"

You get right on that, you little genius.

[John]

I call them "alpha nerds" because they are the ones who are most out there and the most obnoxious. The for lack of a better term "Big Ban Theory" nerds are much more under the radar. They are too busy learning long division and calculus and playing Minecraft if they are the right age, and other such things and are often too shy and introverted to be running for student council and the debate club and doing the things the more noticeable and outgoing alpha nerds do.

Which group is the real "alphas" of the nerd world is I guess a matter of semantics. Whatever you call them, your description of them as "nerds who are too stupid to do serious math so instead choose to get ahead by sucking up to authority" describes them perfectly.

[Cdr Lytton]

So Kent then.

[Brett L]

But actually not bright. Not like, cheating on DiffEq III as a high school senior. Like, struggling through College Algebra so they never have to take math in college not bright. I don't know what you call innumerate people who memorize, collate, and recite facts well on command.

[CE]

Lawyers.

[Brett L]

I didn't want to hurt all the lawyers' feelings. That gets you sued. So, in case anyone is wondering, I have no appreciable assets.

[CE]

Spot on. They were so outraged by his trolling, they completely missed that he was playing them, keeping Hillary's email crimes in the spotlight and getting them to admit that the emails getting hacked was indeed a threat to national security.

[Free Society]

ease deportation rules

Ease the rules? They have trouble finding a legal course to deport "refugee" rapists? By all rights they should be gelded and put on a slow boat to somewhere else.

[Lord Humungus]

Young Kaine, Sanders, Clinton, and Obama look like they would make a kick-ass indie band.

[Rufus The Monocled]

And what would the name of this 'kick ass' band be?

The Punchables.

[Citizen X]

The world would be a far better place if they'd done that instead of going into politics.

This goes for every politician ever.

[John]

That ladies and gentleman is exactly what I was talking about above. That statement is funny not because it is obsequious towards the Democrats. Partisans of all kinds are obsequious to their own side. What makes that statement funny and kind of sad and pathetic is how socially awkward it is. He meant it jokingly but the truth behind the joke as he saw it was that the really do share some characteristics with an indy rock band. Only someone who is anything but socially awkward and unable to fully appreciate social cues could believe that. Its just so nerdy and sad.

[Free Society]

Chocolate Jesus and the Looters.

[Agammamon]

It'd never work. They'd *all* demand to headline.

[BigT]

The Fabulous Narcissists!!

[Lord Humungus]

Kermit has rights too!

University to offer 'Green Lives Matter' environmental justice class

A first-year seminar class on tap this fall at the University of Wisconsin?Green Bay promises to merge civil rights with pollution.

The course, called "Green Lives Matter," aims to teach students about the Environmental Justice Movement, its online description states.

The movement argues that the effects of capitalism force poor and minority communities to live in dangerous and unhealthy situations.

Students enrolled in the class will study the "Flint lead contamination, migrant farm worker pesticide exposure, Cancer Alley (Louisiana), mining on tribal lands, Hurricane Katrina, Alaskan natives, urban environmental harms, and others," the course's online description states.

[Jerryskids]

The movement argues that the effects of capitalism force poor and minority communities to live in dangerous and unhealthy situations.

As opposed to the effects of not having capitalism where the poor and the rich alike live in dangerous and unhealthy situations. Question: would you rather live in Flint, Michigan today or Beverly Hills, California circa the 1300's? Only if you buy into the noble savage pastoral Edenic myth of man living as one with nature would you choose the one where anti-cavity toothpaste and Bactine and underarm deodorant hadn't even been invented.

[Eternal Blue Sky]

"Only if you buy into the noble savage pastoral Edenic myth of man living as one with nature" would you think that Native Americans in California circa 1300 were somehow Socialistic.

[Citizen X]

+1491

[Brochettaward]

It's amazing to me how completely devoid of facts these movements require. I had to read a bunch of this bullshit perspective in college. All lacking citations or anything even resembling facts.

[benji]

And he promised to be a Democrat from now on!

Bernie Sanders said he plans to return to the Senate as an independent, despite winning 13 million votes in the Democratic Party's presidential primary contest.

"I was elected as an independent; I'll stay two years more as an independent," Mr. Sanders said.

Speaking at the Bloomberg Politics breakfast on Tuesday, Mr. Sanders also said the resignation of Debbie Wasserman Schultz as chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee doesn't go far enough in fixing the situation and that more staff members need to leave following embarrassing disclosures of thousands of internal emails.

"We need a DNC which has as very different direction," he said. "I honestly don't know many of the people there. But my guess is we're going to need new leadership, a new direction and new personnel."

[Lord Humungus]

One Big Happy Riot
The Democrats try to spin dysfunction as triumph.

Behold the Democrats: party of the people, party of progress, party of the perpetually aggrieved. In Philadelphia on Monday, they kicked off their quadrennial convention, in the process reminding everyone that they are also the party in power. The task before them is formidable: to sell Americans on the notion that eight years of Democratic rule have left the country better off, while at the same time convincing swing voters in Ohio and Florida that a host of ills?from patriarchy and institutional racism to corporate greed and police brutality?plague us still, and require ever greater levels of government intervention to solve.

The argument lends itself to cognitive dissonance. Monday's speakers testified to the devastation of the opioid epidemic, which has emerged as a national crisis only in recent years. Undocumented immigrants spoke of the hardship of living in the shadows, though the label "deporter-in-chief" was affixed to Obama not by the restrictionist Right, but by the open-borders Left. Last night's convention theme was "United Together." In the interest of truth in advertising, it ought to have been "Having it Both Ways."

[CE]

Yeah, how is "More of the Same" a good campaign slogan when they're telling us how many of the little people they represent are in such bad shape that they need more big government help?

[Ken Shultz]

"German Chancellor Angela Merkel, under pressure after two terror attacks by asylum seekers in the space of a week, said she was still convinced that Germany could handle the influx of migrants and refugees."

The best thing about democracy is the opportunity to kick you leaders to the curb periodically. It isn't about the people getting what they want.

In this situation, not giving in is the smart thing from a self-preservation standpoint. If she admitted she was wrong, that would be the end of her political career. At worst you admit that "mistakes were made" (by somebody), but that you did the right thing.

Look at Hillary Clinton: Travelgate, Filegate, Whitewater, Stealing the White House's silverware and furniture, takes money from foreign governments while Secretary of State, Benghazi, and the email scandal--and Hillary still hasn't been wrong about anything yet!

Once you admit you were wrong, it's all over.

[Rhywun]

The best thing about democracy is the opportunity to kick you leaders to the curb periodically.

She's running a Grand Coalition - think Dems and GOP ruling together. Who are Germans going to vote for, the FDP (kind of LP-lite, which lost all its seats in the last election)? Or the nigh-commie Greens or The Left?

[John]

It is funny how the media is convinced that Trump is crazy when the leader of Germany seems to really have gone insane without anyone in the media noticing. Saying that Germany can and will accept more refugees in light of recent events is insane. I don't see any other way to describe it.

[(((Renegade)))]

You know what other leader of Germany went insane?

[John]

Ludwig of Bavaria.

[Citizen X]

Ludwig II of Bavaria?

[Rhywun]

David Hasselhoff?

[EdWuncler]

So on Facebook, I basically put up a status saying vote with your conscience and I got this response:

"No its a problem for our country. Not only are we electing a President, but also a governing coalition. Third parties need to do the work and build a presence in local governments and the congress if they are to be viable. If every four years you express a vote for a third party, you are not engaged with the process as a whole. If you want to effect change, then participating consistently and pushing your party to adopt your views is how change happens. Party identity means that you vote for the party's platform, which is a vision statement for the future and which is not going to be 100% of what you want.

On the democratic side, this has been accomplished by the Bernie coalition, but they are not satisfied. The fact that he got so much support is actually pretty astonishing since he only recently joined the Democratic party. The same things that made him desirable as a candidate existed solely because he did not have to face electoral pressure within a party when he was an independent. The problem is though that he did not have enough support from the governing coalition and was relatively unknown to many voters."

[EdWuncler]

Continued: "This is party politics. But "voting your conscience" to send a message undermines the fabric of our democracy when the conscience reflects a lack of governing ability. As much as I am frustrated with the two party system, it is the only thing that really keeps our democracy together with all the limits to change designed in our checks and balances system."

[Ken Shultz]

"Voting your conscience" to send a message undermines the fabric of our democracy when the conscience reflects a lack of governing ability. "

Actually, this is the argument for principled non-voting--it undermines the fabric of democracy.

And when "democracy" becomes the means by which Presidents legitimize the horrible shit they want to do to us, the only people who have a right to complain are the people who refuse to participate in the process of legitimization.

[EdWuncler]

He's a cool guy and actually easy to talk to but political wise, he's pretty authoritarian and I'm not even being hyperbolic.

His belief is that giving people too much freedom would allow them to make decisions that doesn't benefit society at large along with the idea that some people may make the wrong decisions.

[Ken Shultz]

The decisions individuals make all have qualitative components. No one can make qualitative choices for individuals better than individuals can make for themselves. That's half of what markets are--free individuals making qualitative choices for themselves rather than some politician making qualitative choices for them.

We all have a PhD in our own qualitative preferences. If he thinks he can make qualitative choices for other people with any kind of accuracy, he's wrong.

Even seeming universal preferences like safety have a huge qualitative component attached to them. Yeah, individuals who ride motorcycles care about safety, too. They take safety into consideration among other qualitative considerations and come up with a level of safety that's appropriate for them.

It's like that with everything. Some individuals think polar bears are qualitatively more important than coal miners. Some individuals don't think the environment or future generations are qualitatively important enough to justify sacrificing their own standard of living today.

If he thinks the government can tell when individuals are wrong about their own qualitative preferences, he's wrong.

[BigT]

Some people quantitatively realize global warming models are BS.

[robc]

Considering only one ticket this year has considerable "governing ability"....

[Lord Humungus]

But "voting your conscience" to send a message undermines the fabric of our democracy when the conscience reflects a lack of governing ability

say what now?

[WTF]

It undermines democracy? Good, the US was never supposed to be a democracy, it was supposed to be a republic.

[lap83]

I think they're saying that it's unfair to expect leaders to not be evil

[R C Dean]

Sounds like "you can't govern unless you are amoral", to me.

[EdWuncler]

He's the sort that likes politicians who, "gets things done."

[Lord Humungus]

Hitler? Stalin?

[Brochettaward]

If I'm voting for a party no matter what, how the fuck am I going to influence its platform? What incentives does it have to change anything?

[ant1sthenes]

The parties shouldn't even exist. They were never intended to be vehicles for little people to have influence, they were just the archaic version of SuperPACs.

[Ken Shultz]

"Turkey has now shut down 130 media outlets in the wake of the failed coup."

Hate speech.

[Ken Shultz]

Gives a whole new meaning to the term.

Hate speech is when the government hates your speech.

And given what Erdogan is about to do to dissenters--wow, does he ever hate speech.

[Lord Humungus]

Music festival boom and bust: Lollapalooza, Coachella and Desert Trip boast big sales, but some fests are suffering

Still, the 2016 outlook hasn't been as rosy for other festivals. Bonnaroo experienced a significant attendance drop this year, according to a report by The Tennessean: The camping-friendly event sold 45,537 tickets?28,156 fewer than 2015?which amounts to a 46 percent drop from the fest's best-selling 2011 year. The Sasquatch! music festival over Memorial Day weekend drew only 11,000 ticket-holders, according to the Oregonian, which quoted the Grant County Sheriff's Office as saying "that's about 50% of what normally attends."

[Juvenile Bluster]

STEVE SMITH MUSIC FESTIVAL VERY SUCCESSFUL. STEVE SMITH RAPE ALL WEEKEND.

[Citizen X]

I stopped going to music festivals before it was cool.

[SugarFree]

Dysentery sales drop by 50%!

[This Machine]

The Sasquatch! music festival over Memorial Day weekend drew only 11,000 ticket-holders, according to the Oregonian, which quoted the Grant County Sheriff's Office as saying "that's about 50% of what normally attends."

STEVE SMITH SAY STILL GREAT YEAR FOR FESTIVAL, JUST RAPE EVERYONE TWICE.

[Drake]

Anyone else notice that nothing reported on the news about the Munich shooting made any sense? The supposed one guy started shooting outside in the street - then the news showed people running out of a shopping mall? Something fishy.

http://gatesofvienna.net/2016/.....more-40439

[benji]

Half the stories on crimes in my local news don't make any sense according to the reported timeline of events.

A lot of it is horrible writing because the info is in paragraph 3, 7 and 12.

[straffinrun]

The "Lone Wolf" story just is a little too convenient. Surprised they didn't use it to explain 9/11.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Two teenagers who pledged allegiance to ISIS slit the throat of a priest while he was performing MASS in Normandy. I consider that to be a despicable act of aggression as bad as we've seen.

The new narrative-spin among progs? IT'S MENTAL ILLNESS.

[This Machine]

Well, they're not wrong.

But they're not aaaaall the way right, either.

[Rufus The Monocled]

We all know to pull stunts like that takes a certain amount of sickness but they seem to want to use this excuse as a means to an end; which betrays possible other factors. Like being perfectly rational and still wanting to commit heinous crimes in the name of religion via ISIS.

[Eternal Blue Sky]

Not really sure where you live, but around where I live malls generally have more than one entrance and exit. They usually have a ton. If the shooting started at the North Entrance from the streets, running out the South Entrance makes sense.

[ant1sthenes]

FWIW, I don't think that was terrorism, just an ordinary nutbag. Muslim terrorists don't shoot themselves, they either blow themselves up or die in a hail of bullets, because both count as a legitimate jihadi death, whereas just shooting yourself does not -- but it is the common end of the random mentally ill mass murderer.

[Lord Humungus]

Video: The reason why women who handle hops start menstruating is because of a phytoestrogen that ends up in beer, called 8-prenylnaringenin (8-PN).

Mandrake, have you never wondered why I drink only distilled water, or rainwater, and only pure-grain alcohol?

[OneOut]

Drinking distilled water will kill you..

[R C Dean]

After seeing the level of scunge deposited by rain in the our dog's pond (yes, the Dean dogs have a pond) every time it rains, I ain't drinking rainwater unless I have to.

[Lord Humungus]

'Sesame Street' Lets Go Longtime Cast Members Bob, Gordon and Luis

Sesame Street, the 46-year-old award-winning children's show, cut three of its most senior cast members earlier this year, according to one of the actors that was released.

At a Q&A event at the Florida Supercon on July 2, Bob McGrath AKA "Bob" informed the audience that he, Emilio Delgado (who played "Luis") and Roscoe Orman ("Gordon") were all released from the show as part of its re-tooling for HBO.

"As of this season, I have completed my 45th season this year. And the show has gone under a major turn around, going from an hour to a half-hour. HBO has gotten involved also. And they let all of the original cast members go, with the exception of Alan Muraoka ? who is probably 20 years younger than the rest of us ? and Chris Knowings, who is also young," McGrath said.

[Juvenile Bluster]

Having watched Sesame Street a few years ago when my daughter was in the age range for it... it's just horrible now compared to the late 70s and early 80s when I grew up watching it. Elmo ruined that show.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Without a doubt. It lacks all the natural charm and hilarity of the past.

Now with these guys out of the way, it wouldn't surprise me if SS goes full SJW.

[WTF]

Hopefully we will get HBO versions of this.

[Lord Humungus]

Was hoping for a Game of Thrones Sesame Street video.

[SugarFree]

Snuffleupagus is coming.

[Lord Humungus]

eww...

[commodious never even met you]

Relevant.

[This Machine]

Who was the one character on old-timey Sesame Street who claimed to be a musical genius but just smashed his face into the piano keys? That dude was funny. Good times.

[Voros McCracken]

Don Music

[robc]

I thought people other than Big Bird seeing Snuffalupagus (sp?) ruined it?

[Cdr Lytton]

Sesame Street died when Mr Hooper died.

[benji]

Somebody should have cut Tim Kaine off from the cocaine or espresso before he went on stage last night.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Or the Red Bull.

Regular coffee and tea have more caffeine than espresso!

[commodious never even met you]

What about expresso?

[straffinrun]

Did you see Peter Thiel at the RNC? He eventually cooled down, but those first few minutes were painful. I didn't know a human could open their eyes so wide.

[Je suis Woodchipper]

that was a letdown.

[Nativist, Racist & Xenophobe]

http://slatestarcodex.com/2016.....t-was-won/

[commodious never even met you]

Nobody reads links, fucko. You gotta digest it a bit if you want someone to take note.

[benji]

http://www.syracuse.com/celebr.....lican.html

The "American Sniper" actor came under fire Wednesday when he was spotted in the audience at the 2016 Democratic National Convention with his girlfriend, Russian model Irina Shayk. Cooper was a trending topic on Twitter as social media users were apparently surprised to discover he's not really a Republican after playing Kyle, a conservative hero, in Clint Eastwood's movie about the late Navy SEAL sniper.

Wait...Patrick Stewart isn't a telepath?!?

[benji]

But...he's already seen everything.

[Juvenile Bluster]

He is, and Sir Ian McKellen can really control metal.

Because they're just that awesome.

[TheZeitgeist]

Obviously supports open borders if the refugees are hot.

[paranoid android]

I'm also starting to suspect that Meryl Streep does not really support the policies of Margaret Thatcher!

[Agammamon]

Fuck.

I guess I better cross Anthony Hopkins off The List.

[You Sound Like a Prog (MJG)]

I briefly thought this was saying that Clint Eastwood was at the DNC, and somehow wooed Irina Shayk.

[CE]

Don't put it past him.

[lafe.long]

How Apple and the FBI took down the world's largest torrent site

Prosecutors say Apple records linked an Apple email to the owner of the world's largest torrent-download site, KAT.

[Juice]

Wow. What a dumbass. That's way worse than Dread Pirate Roberts fuck up. Using a me.com email address? There are plenty of anonymous, encrypted email services to use and he picks fucking apple email?

[WhatAboutBob]

Selling Past the Close

I watched singer Alicia Keys perform her song Superwoman at the convention and experienced a sinking feeling. I'm fairly certain my testosterone levels dropped as I watched, and that's not even a little bit of an exaggeration. Science says men's testosterone levels rise when they experience victory, and drop when they experience the opposite. I watched Keys tell the world that women are the answer to our problems. True or not, men were probably not feeling successful and victorious during her act.

Let me say this again, so you know I'm not kidding. Based on what I know about the human body, and the way our thoughts regulate our hormones, the Democratic National Convention is probably lowering testosterone levels all over the country. Literally, not figuratively. And since testosterone is a feel-good chemical for men, I think the Democratic convention is making men feel less happy. They might not know why they feel less happy, but they will start to associate the low feeling with whatever they are looking at when it happens, i.e. Clinton.

Another sign that Clinton will lose in November.

[Atanarjuat]

IFLS

[Rhywun]

You would think the last eight years of gender (and race) shaming would have the same effect. The only "men" voting for her are the betas.

[ant1sthenes]

I thought it was when she more or less stated that male lives have no value in and of themselves.

[Drake]

I thought Kaine looked like Mike Dukakis with a bad case of low-T as he was giving his free-shit speech.

[Sevo]

"Turkey has now shut down 130 media outlets in the wake of the failed coup."

Tin-pot dictator detector at red-line.

[robc]

As joe (as Jack and Ace) been defending Turkey as a democracy?

[CE]

The first thing he did was put all the academics on a no-fly list.
Somehow the media in the US didn't point out that denying people the right to travel without due process is the mark of a tyrannical dictator. Maybe because their heroes in Washington were calling to expand the no-fly, no-due-process list, and add the right to self defense to the right to travel in being squelched.

[Lord Humungus]

Random thought: I've watched several presidential elections. This one has the Democrats fully embracing - proudly - what they often tried to hide in the past. ie - I can't imagine Carter, or Bill Clinton running on this, or even Al Gore. They Democrats of the past had to keep their masks on.

I also don't see much movement toward the center (whatever that means), instead it's freebies, fascism, and falafel for everyone. If any nominee tried to run on this platform in the 70s, 80s, or even the 90s, they would have been laughed out of the room.

So what's changed since then? Do the Democrats believe that their base is big enough that they no longer need the middle, or has the electorate actually shifted to the left. If so, why? Long march through the institutions? Increased minority (immigration) numbers?

[Lord Humungus]

* and pardons for my babbling; slept awful last night getting over being sick. It's been wrecking my workout plan too.

[commodious never even met you]

Pro-tip: you can lift on the toilet. I call it shitter bulking.

[(((Renegade)))]

So what's changed since then?

Serious answer: the competition. As lame as the Team Red nominees have been in the past, this is a new low.

[Chipwooder]

In part, but they really buy into their strategy that they can completely ignore white voters other than the Lexus-driving whole foods bobo types in order to hold the rest of their coalition together. That's why it's all green bullshit/racial shitstirring/abortions/LBGTBGDSGYJRTY+*/- all the time. The goal of Dem identity politics is to whittle the electorate down to smaller discrete blocs of voters that can be successfully pandered to, and have that add up to enough voters to win. They've made the considered decision that they don't need the white middle/lower classes from the boonies to win national elections.

[(((Renegade)))]

Team Red has done a wonderful job of chasing away a large number of white voters who are repulsed by Der Trump, and they're not all bobos. As long as the pitch is "you're voting against Trump," it doesn't matter much what Hillary and her cohorts say or do.

[Chipwooder]

Yes, but I doubt more than a tiny number of them vote for Hillary!, they'll just stay home or, in a few cases, vote for Johnson. In any case, they've been going down this road since 2008 - it doesn't really have anything to do with Trump.

[straffinrun]

I'm surprised there isn't even more violence. I've never seen this degree of identity politics either. But there's an ocean between me and the lunatics, so I've got only the internet to go by.

[SugarFree]

Before they had to hide what the progressive agenda from the base, now they have to profess the progressive agenda to appease the base.

In many ways, the Democrats are having the same sort of rebellion of their voter base that the Republicans are seeing in Trump. They just managed to keep enough of a lid on it to keep their outsider buffoon from being nominated.

[(((Renegade)))]

A multi-decade member of congress being considered an outsider sums up perfectly what's wrong with American politics.

[Zeb]

He's no political outsider, but he is a Democratic party outsider.

[(((Renegade)))]

Other than spending his entire political career caucusing and voting with Team Blue.

[Knarf the Yenrab]

Long march through the institutions? Increased minority (immigration) numbers?

Thou hast said so.

The left has the MSM, Hollywood, and all of non-STEM academe. Since 1965, it has created out of thin air a new American minority that votes Dem 70% of the time. Campuses are leftist indoctrination camps, and virtually everyone insists that sending most all kids off to college is a good thing.

The social lost the philosophical and economic empirical wars, but it's come close to prevailing socially by importing voters and using taxpayer dollars to indoctrinate teenagers in that critical period when they first leave home. That they have the gall to run Hillary Fucking Clinton for president shows how confident they are in being able to trot out any turd in a wig and have their zombies cast a ballot for them.

[CE]

What's different this time is that Sanders ran a very strong insurgent campaign on the left, so Clinton has to try to appease those people instead of reaching back to the center, and hoping that Trump-aversion will have centrists vote for her.

[WhatAboutBob]

Judicial Watch: FBI Investigation Documents of IRS Scandal

Judicial Watch today released 294 pages of new Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) "302" documents revealing that top Washington IRS officials, including Lois Lerner and Holly Paz, knew that the agency was specifically targeting "Tea Party" and other conservative organizations two full years before disclosing it to Congress and the public.

[Brochettaward]

Faux scandal.

Ignore the part where Lois Lerner was talking about going to work for an Obama Super PAC, as well.

[lafe.long]

American Family Association: Group Criticizes Hilton Worldwide for Ad Featuring 2 Men in Bed Together

"If Hilton had advertised two men playing tennis, cards, or having lunch, that would have been reasonable," the group said on its website. The full-page ad was published in Travel + Leisure magazine.

[Brett L]

Just got up to grab a bite. Me to self: "Hmm, how old IS this soup?"

Solution: Heat to boiling, add hot sauce

Just telling someone so my family can have closure on cause if this is a bad idea.

[Juvenile Bluster]

I call the "Florida man dies of food poisoning from "old soup"" post on Reddit.

[Lord Humungus]

Farewell! And do not die!

[Agammamon]

Seriously, if the first bite leads you to ask 'how old is this' - its not worth taking a second. Better to not eat than eat crappy food (Disclaimer: This assumes a moderate level of 1st world affluence).

[Brett L]

No, no. I didn't take a bite first. I just couldn't remember once I had already ladled it up. I did, for the sake of my wife and children, throw away the remainder. But I was hungry and it was that or toast.

[R C Dean]

You don't have a single egg in your house?

[Brett L]

I have eggs plural, but I don't have to justify not wanting to wait for the pan to heat. I had several beers at lunch, instead to work its antibiotic magic on my stomach.

[R C Dean]

not wanting to wait for the pan to heat

Didn't you heat the soup?

[lap83]

Better to not eat than eat crappy food

This is my motto, but it's not just affluence. I've had severe food poisoning twice in my life. Part of the treatment involves basically not eating for 24 hours or more. So sometimes the choice is between A. not eating until the next meal 6-12 hours later or B. turning violently ill and not eating for the next 1-3 days. (or worse)

[commodious never even met you]

Fasting may result in weight loss over the course of many weeks. Food poisoning guarantees weight loss in a matter of days.

[commodious never even met you]

Canadian industry group apologizes for "hot lesbian" ad. The ad reads:

In Canada lesbians are considered hot! In Saudi Arabia if you're a lesbian YOU DIE!

Why are we getting oil from countries that don't think lesbians are hot?

Now, there's some obvious problems with this. Not because Saudi Arabia executes gays, but because the ad "fetishizes" lesbians. No word as to whether the ad is islamophobic as well, but pointing out regressive tendencies in Muslim countries is islamophobic, so probably.

[Brett L]

Well, I think stating that their main utility is that they are pleasing to the eye when making out is not cool. I think lesbians ought not be murdered because they are humans.

[commodious never even met you]

Besides, lesbians aren't real gays.

[Brochettaward]

Isn't it problematic in itself to think lesbians are hot? Isn't that the male gaze or something, like the value of their sexual identity is predicated upon how hot they are to men?

But in general there is a high degree of inanity in asking why "we" are getting our oil from this country. It's a massive exercise in collectivization obscuring the rights of individuals engaging in commerce. In politicizes something that really isn't or at least should not be political, as well.

[Brett L]

Technically, "We" -- in this case "Canada" don't get a lot of oil from Saudi Arabia. They are also the US's number one foreign supplier of crude. Why would we ship oil all the way from Saudi when we have plenty of it within easy reach of the refineries that line the Gulf of Mexico. Saudi Arabia sells most of their oil to people who want to process very "clean" crude. The US Gulf ports buy the dirtiest heaviest crude they can find. Cheap inputs plus efficient processing equal more profit. The island refineries like Trinidad are a little more selective, but they'd rather buy WTI and save 4 days of sailing.

[Zeb]

Isn't it problematic in itself to think lesbians are hot?

The ubiquity of girl-on-girl porn makes me thing that that is something people are just going to have to get over.

[Chipwooder]

And, of course, the girls in girl-on-girl don't generally resemble what most lesbians actually look like.

[Lord Humungus]

Once I was traipsing toward one my local watering holes, right past a gay combination bookstore / coffee shop.

Out from this store pops a real knockout of a woman - total hot lipstick lesbian. I can't help but stop to look at her. And then. from the same store, comes a bull dyke - jeans, buzzed hair, wifebeater - who is obviously her partner. The look of hatred I got from the dyke was uh, amusing. I smile at her like "what are you going to do about it?" and then continue on my merry way.

[Zeb]

That seems like a common arrangement (and it's always a bit interesting to me that certain women attracted to women so often are attracted to rather masculine women in particular).

The most stunningly attractive woman I've ever known personally was a lesbian too, so there is that.

[R C Dean]

So now, the Wrong People aren't even allowed to compliment gay people?

I guess we should avert our eyes when they walk past? Or would that be othering?

Maybe the only way to avoid giving offense is to just kill ourselves.

[ant1sthenes]

I do love the ability of progs to ignore the most pressing and essential points to distract themselves with relatively trivial bullshit.

"This poster reminds us that our oil purchases are empowering monstrous people that execute male gays"
"Yes, yes, but, speaking of male gaze..."

[commodious never even met you]

Wasn't energy independence a big plank for Democrats? Mysteriously, they seem to have quit discussing it right around 2009...

[Zeb]

because the ad "fetishizes" lesbians

No, male sexual fantasy has fetishized lesbians. The ad just exploits what already exists in the culture.

[This Machine]

So I guess the DNC could fuck up a wet dream - DNC Uses Images of Russian Warships during Tribute to Veterans:

While retired Adm. John Nathman, a former commander of Fleet Forces Command, honored vets as America's best, the ships from the Russian Federation Navy were arrayed like sentinels on the big screen above.

These were the very Soviet-era combatants that Nathman and Cold Warriors like him had once squared off against.

"The ships are definitely Russian," said noted naval author Norman Polmar after reviewing hi-resolution photos from the event. "There's no question of that in my mind."

Naval experts concluded the background was a photo composite of Russian ships that were overflown by what appear to be U.S. trainer jets. It remains unclear how or why the Democratic Party used what's believed to be images of the Russian Black Sea Fleet at their convention.

[Agammamon]

The veteran who spotted the error and notified Navy Times said he was immediately taken aback.

"I was kind of in shock," said Rob Barker, 38, a former electronics warfare technician who left the Navy in 2006. Having learned to visually identify foreign ships by their radars, Barker recognized the closest ship as the Kara-class cruiser Kerch.

*sigh* I guess there's a reason he hit HYT and was let go.

[Gilbert Martin]

Well after all, the Democrats really ARE the Communist Party of America, so it's entirely appropriate.

[Juvenile Bluster]

Orlando police arrest man after mistaking Krispy Kreme donut glaze (one substance you'd think they'd be familiar with) for meth

Daniel Rushing treats himself to a Krispy Kreme doughnut every other Wednesday. He used to eat them in his car.

Not anymore.

Not since a pair of Orlando police officers pulled him over, spotted four tiny flakes of glaze on his floorboard and arrested him, saying they were pieces of crystal methamphetamine.

The officers did two roadside drug tests and both came back positive for the illegal substance, according to his arrest report.

He was handcuffed, arrested, taken to the county jail and strip searched, he said.

A state crime lab, however, did another test several weeks later and cleared him.

"It was incredible," he said. "It feels scary when you haven't done anything wrong and get arrested. ? It's just a terrible feeling."

The important lesson learned:

She asked for permission to search his vehicle, the report says, and Rushing agreed.

"I didn't have anything to hide," he said. "I'll never let anyone search my car again."

[Zeb]

So, do those tests ever not come back positive?

[paranoid android]

Remember the quickly-forgotten recent story about the woman running the state lab in MA (I think) who was faking the tests and stealing all of the drugs herself, and possibly invalidated thousands upon thousands of convictions? I can't imagine she's the only one in such a position not on the straight and narrow.

[Zeb]

I mean that field tests specifically. The state lab seems to use real tests.

That story was pretty bad, but probably actually results in more people being acquitted because of the fuckup than wrongly convicted.

[CE]

It's Florida though. There's probably crystal meth in the air.

[Agammamon]

Of course not.

The drug war is sooooo important that its imperative that the field tests do not return false negative. false positives and weeks to months in jail (or forking over bail money) before the lab gets around to testing it are a small price to pay for a Drug Free America.

[WTF]

It doesn't matter, if he said no, then they just would have gotten K9 officer fluffy to alert and the search would have proceeded anyway.

[CE]

Dogs like Krispy Kreme too.

[commodious never even met you]

You carb-loading, tubs? Gonna go for a run? Chowing down on fatty bait before your marathon? Yeah, I bet. Deserved it.

*flexes in mirror*

[Juvenile Bluster]

I've knocked on hundreds of car doors and not one person has come out holding a donut. He deserved it.

[commodious never even met you]

He's just lucky he didn't make a furtive motion toward the donut box.

[Rhywun]

he failed to come to a full stop before pulling out of the convenience store parking lot and [...] he was driving 42 mph in a 30 mph zone

Sounds like he deserved to be strapped to a hospital bed for some anal probing if you ask me.

[Libertarian]

"A state crime lab, however, did another test SEVERAL WEEKS later and cleared him."

So.............a jail sentence of several weeks is baked into the system for those who can't make bail. So then the arrestee loses his job, suffers the indignity of newspaper articles that say he's allegedly used meth, etc. etc. etc.

[Rhywun]

Look, do you want to be safe or not? Sheesh.

[Joe M]

Hillary Clinton will speak tonight at the Democratic National Convention.

Finally, she can get her campaign finished.

[R C Dean]

It will be good to finally get introduced to the Dem candidate, won't it?

[CE]

It's historic. Just like every other major party nomination.

[Illocust]

So interesting factoid in an interview by Slate with Greenwald. Reporters are pretty open about the fact that they are trying everything they can to stop Trump with no real concern for if it's true or not. Reasons to vote Trump number 1. This bullshit will be justified if he doesn't win.

http://www.slate.com/articles/.....hyism.html

[Knarf the Yenrab]

Is the Elite Media Failing to Reach Trump Voters?

Was the Pravda failing to reach the kulaks?

These people have lived in their echo chamber for so long that they've become delusional.

[R C Dean]

This bullshit will be justified if he doesn't win.

You mean, we might get more of what we reward, and less of what we punish?

[Chipwooder]

Interview conducted by JournoList alumnus Isaac Chotiner, so acting as an volunteer Dem operative is nothing new for Ike.

[Red Rocks Okey-Dokein]

I'm not all that surprised how poorly Nirvana's music aged. They fit in perfectly with what the music companies decided to push as hair metal and late 80s synth-pop fell out of favor, so they sound very much of their time.